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Nick has had a hard few weeks. He experienced two tough days of seizures and then it took him about four days to recover. For the past week, he has been getting used to the new seizure med. He says, “I am much better.” We really hope so. For dinner, we decided to give Nick
We celebrated Nick’s 42nd birthday last week. It was a glorious day. The weather was perfect. Nick was doing great that day. His subclinical seizures seemed to be at a minimum. He was engaged and involved in all the party preparations. He received phone calls and video calls from people who couldn’t join us for
I haven’t written a post lately. Nick has been in a low place physically and my mood has matched. It makes me sad to see him struggle to move from his wheelchair to another chair, etc. and I just haven’t known what to share. Well, yesterday started out the same as all the rest of
We follow an Irish girl vocal group called the Henry Girls. They sing a poignant ballad called “How Do You Know?” The main question posed by the lyrics is: How can you tell if an event or a situation is good luck or bad luck? Sometimes we are quick to judge that we are experiencing
Nick loves to sing. He has memorized hundreds of songs and sometimes he is like a human juke box, singing one song after another, end to end. This musical feast can get interrupted. Arden or I might receive a phone call, or there is something we need to talk about or we arrive at our
Nick loves birthdays, especially his own. To him, it is the best day of the year. Last year on this day, the eve of Nick’s birthday, I had a huge paradigm shift. For years, in spite of my usual positive proactive approach to caring for Nick, that one day each year was a dark and
When Nick was young, his physical therapist recommended that we build him a sandbox. She said that the tactile experience would be good for him. I liked the idea of him being able to do something that other kids did. The sandbox became a place where he played side by side with other children in
It took almost a week, but we finished it. The puzzle was a 1000 piece cityscape of Manhattan that was difficult. Our visitors are puzzle people too and we all worked together on this project. It sat on the counter in the kitchen as a focal point. Initially, the frame came together with scattered small groupings
Arden and I were traveling for 19 hours from the time we left our home in Carnation to when we finally were able to rest at our hotel in Florence Italy. We were exhausted and excited to finally be at our destination. The journey can be daunting. Some people recently confided to me that they wished they
When I was a young mom, I was not naïve; I knew that life has it ups and downs. I expected a Merry-Go-Round, and got a Roller-Coaster. I thought that my life would go up and down, up and down, in gentle expected cycles of highs and lows. I didn’t anticipate the sudden terrifying plunges,
Announcing that I have finished a book with the working title of “The Fairy Fort.” I am currently pitching it to publishers. Keep checking back to watch the progress of my newest novel.
Here is a quick glimpse of the story.
Sarah Doherty is an 18-year-old living in rural Ireland at the tail end of the Great War. Plagued by severe epilepsy, she is protected by her parents and lives a sheltered, secluded, lonely life. The Fae, local Irish fairies, interfere with her life. She falls forward a century in time through the local fairy fort of standing stones. She had a seizure in 1918 and woke up in 2020. The 21st century world includes life-saving prescriptions, physical comforts and the independence and freedom she seeks. The locals are welcoming and Andy Mclaughlin, a handsome young historian, is intriguing. She doesn’t want to return home.
Then a letter arrives from Boston divulging the story of Sarah and Andy’s lives that are deeply entwined in the previous century. They are not yet in love but as they seek to verify the letter through online resources, they feel a growing obligation to their unborn family and to each other. What would happen to their posterity living in Boston if they don’t return to 1918? Even if they do make it back, her parents can never know what happened to her or that would change everything.
This Young Adult time-travel romance explores the question: Do we have the freedom to make choices or is free will an elaborate illusion?
This is my third book. I love reading time travel romances. I am an advocate for epilepsy awareness because my 43-year-old son has intractable epilepsy. As a genealogist specializing in Irish research, I live part of the year in the village where the story is based. I wrote the book to help young adults understand that difficult situations can change your life. Sometimes miraculously.
