Feelings today.

I am overwhelmed with love and sadness. I am truly excited about the move coming up within the next two weeks. Sad to miss special friends and happy to know prayers can be answered.

First... I am so ever grateful for all the friends I've made here in Fresno. We've had a lot of years here and I'm gonna miss seeing my friends. I've learned bunches while living here and met a lot of beautiful people. What I like best is that through technology and determination, I can keep in touch with most of them. I think I will miss Juan and Lori Avila the most. I remember the first day I met Lori. Almost 25 years ago, I came into the Purchasing Dept at the VA and interviewed for a job that I eventually got. I sat in front of her desk and knew right away we would hit it off. It's kind of rough to even write this. Since then, we have hung out with her through her loss of Richard Moore to a heart attack, meeting her kids and grandkids and me getting married to Gary. Finally, to her meeting Juan and getting married. My struggles with my kids and grandkids and just watching our families grow and enjoying each other. No other friend has affected me the way Lori has. We are complete opposites in some ways. She was raised in a town outside of Detroit Michigan and still follows their sports teams. True blue all the way. I'm gonna miss how we could visit and just hang out. Chatting about most anything. What was the best is the annual Super Bowl games, cheering for one team or the other and betting on final scores.everyone has had a chance to win... I'm gonna miss you the most girl.

Secondly... I am truly grateful that I was able to improve my life by meeting Gary, changing my health habits and getting closer to my church. I've known that Gary is truly inspired when he makes wise decisions. We've made some mistakes and we do pay for them, but mostly I am grateful for his love, patience, care and especially his understanding of my health. We care very much for each other and I know Heavenly Father led me to him at the right time. We have been married 22 years now... I am also grateful to his girls for making a special effort for us to be together on the coast. For Kim who made the ultimate sacrifice by sub letting her place so we could move and to Mel for getting things together for herself and Tristan. I'm grateful for my grandsons and soon to be grand daughter. I'm grateful for Nate and Mari who adopted us as "grandparents" to their small family of two.

I am especially grateful for the gospel and how it has changed my life for the better. Though I struggle to attend each week, I know that for me the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is true. I know I've met good people here because of it and I will miss them truly. I know that God loves me and wants what is best for me. I know that this opportunity to live on the coast is the best I've ever gotten. I've always wanted to live on the coast.

Last but not least, I'm gonna miss my Punkyn Pye. She can't come with us and I pray that we can find her a new forever family to live with...Cee Cee came back into our lives just in time. She can't replace Punkyn, but she can fill the void somewhat by just being who she is...

Yes, Fresno served its purpose as did all the previous places have. Who knows, we might even end up back here again, though I hope not...

Everything is relative

It's like that Kevin Bacon game, whatever that is. Everything comes back to the same start. After all, how could it be different? Just consider all the situations being felt around your life, around the world... Seems nothing changes so much as not to be predictable. The same trials, the same feats and yet, we learn nothing as we continue to fumble our way through life. The big shots get bigger, the nut jobs get nuttier and they all blame everyone for something that nobody did. Who is this nobody? Why it's you and me. We need to learn by our mistakes and go on, but too many people have not been taught responsibility.

As I ramble on, I realize that no matter how I put it, someone will be offended. Today?, I don't care too much about that because I feel it's important for us all to own up to the bad as quickly as we do the good... On that thought, doing good can be done modestly by not saying anything at all.

Quickly learn to accept our faults and fallacies and go on to change things for the better. I'm hoping for the rest of my life to be a better person, to share my good times and bad times. To smile when I want to cry and to share when I feel greedy. If we can retain anything, I would love to retain a memory of my good days and learn from the tough ones.

Let's just do what we can to share love and laughter, joy and cheeriness. Do what you can to retain your ups and downs and lets stick this Kevin Bacon thing out of the future and learn to change predictability