This is amazing…an interesting day at the Florida beach…   My two children and hubby were jumping in wave after wave in the Gulf of Mexico near Naples.   Before joining them in the water, my attention was riveted on the medical personnel who had arrived at the beach to tend to an injured […]

Plantation Key where one of the bodies was found. Unknown to me at the time, last week as I was flying out of Florida and escaping the Storm, four unidentified corpses, scattered over a 30 mile stretch along the Florida Keys (where my family and I had snorkeled during our vacation), were found floating offshore. […]

Imagine blissfully snorkeling in the calm, clear waters off Florida’s Key West…soaking up the sight of colorful fish and amazing coral formations…and suddenly encountering a shark.   Yes, to my left (and perhaps ten feet below me—I found it hard to judge distance) a shark was lazily making its way from behind some coral that […]

Take the plunge…immerse yourself in one of my vacation days in Florida (pre-hurricane):   It’s a gorgeous 90-degree Fahrenheit plus humidity day in the 120-mile Florida Keys 200-island chain. Five miles offshore from Key West (the southernmost point in the United States), the lime-green water over the coral reef is clear, calm and shallow—ideal for […]

My family and I were recently vacationing in the state of Florida when Tropical Storm Fay approached and hit (and stuck around for a week). I watched as precautionary measures for the safety of the public were being made—city workers sucking out debris from storm drains to minimize the expected flooding. But sadly, the deaths […]

Not so long ago I inherited some things from my parents. Tucked away in what was obviously a special box my mother kept, I found several untitled poems in my now deceased sister’s, Cindy James, handwriting (there is no reference to the author of the poems—had Cindy created them?) Here is one of the poems: […]

Back from vacation, my son sprinted into the house to check on his banded Syrian hamster (Kobe) and tell him all about his fabulous adventures. Suddenly a shrill cry pierced the air and my son, sobbing and holding a piece of paper that had been laying on the hamster’s cage, came running out of his […]

It really happened quite by accident… Over dinner the conversation turned to a discussion about their father who had died years ago. All of the participants were now parents themselves. The conversation went on for hours as each person recited a story…one after the other. Later, they recalled how much fun that evening of sharing […]

“If you continue down the road you’re on, you’re going to end up where you’re headed.” ~Lao Tse His writings teach the philosophy of the Tao, or the Way (Morality) of ancient China (Taoist religion) Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend Read an excerpt now TV Shows and Clips about the […]

“The most important decision we ever make is whether we believe we live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe.” ~Albert Einstein. It seems pretty hard to settle Einstein’s question with absolute finality, in an intellectual sense, but I can think of it as how I decide to view the universe depends on me—my […]