If the salary was the same, what job would you be doing right now and why?
I love my job. The hours are long and everyday I have a different challenges but everyday begins with hugs and smiles. And I end my day the same way it began with hugs and kisses.
I am a full time nanny for a family with 3 children. I’ve been with them for 10 years this October. The kids are 11,almost 9 and 5.5. There are two boys and one girl.
Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation/live in?
Without a doubt either Three Pines or St. Denis.
Three Pines is a fictional village located in Québec and borders the U.S. it is home to a close knit community comprised of:
The café is a local gathering place with a large fireplace, delicious food and a hot bed of gossip. Everyone looks after each other in this village named for the three large pines in the community’s green space. Why three pines? It’s is said loyalists during the American Revolution could find sanctuary in these Canadian towns.
The second but equally desirable place is the fictional town of St. Denis, Dordogne, France. You’ll find a close knit community who care for each other. Bruno is an excellent cook, has a love of Bassett hounds and seems to always getting involved in unsolved crimes.
Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges is the sole municipal police chief of St. Denis and a former soldier who served in Bosnia. He prefers community-based policing over strict law enforcement, often protecting locals from distant European Union bureaucracies. Deeply embedded in the culture of Périgord, he acts as a youth sports coach, makes his own walnut wine, and functions as the guardian of the town’s traditions. His peaceful routine is disrupted when he must assist national authorities in a sensitive local murder case.
Key Relationships
Employee of Gérard Mangin
Colleague of Isabelle Perrault also her love
Rival Colleague of Captain Duroc
Protector of Karim al-Bakr
Friend of Momu al-Bakr
Colleague of Jean-Jacques “J-J” Jalipeau
Tennis Partner of The Baron
Sometimes lover of Pamela an English divorcée
As the books progress more characters are introduced and Bruno builds a deeply committed relationship with these people from various backgrounds.
Again you’ll find regular dinners hosted by this community of friends. Many times with Bruno doing the cooking. He has a large garden of herbs, tomatoes, vegetables. He truffle hunts with his basset hound.
I’d be happy to live in either of these two places.
Thanks to book companion and super summary for character lists.
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Many more characters are introduced
When you have bottled up anger due to injustice and must engage with people who have no idea of how to engage in rational conversation, you just have to rant.
Science has determined that many miscarriages are caused by faulty sperm. Sperm that have defects or are unhealthy due to a man’s chosen lifestyle.
Laws now prohibit lifesaving measures to women experiencing miscarriage which according to new science isn’t probably her fault. When I suggested men who produce unwanted pregnancies, produce children they refuse to support, abuse their children or have a partner who continually miscarries due to faulty sperm be require to get a vasectomy, the response was along the lines of how dare men’s reproductive rights be hindered.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/27/texas-abortion-death-porsha-ngumezi/
When at the same time supporting regulated control of women’s reproductive rights. It makes me so angry. Men have ruled since time began and women are still seen as second class citizens to be controlled. With this administration, the persecution has gotten worse.
I live in a state where women are being denied healthcare and dying because termination of a pregnancy is illegal. It doesn’t take a deep search to find multiple cases of this.
I doubt I’ll see any change in my lifetime and I feel sorry for my daughters, nieces, granddaughters, and all the future women who have to deal with this injustice.
What’s the weirdest coincidence you’ve ever experienced?
When my daughters were learning to drive I reminded them that we lived in a relatively small community and that I knew a lot of people. So to make sure they were always driving their best because there’s a good chance someone I know will see them rolling through a stop sign or speeding through a stoplight or talking on their cell phone, etc..
My girls just nodded their head and rolled their eyes and thought yeah right mom.
Then over the course of about three or four months, we ran into their dentist at Disney World, their dad’s cousin had a huge flea market in East Texas, a pilot and his wife with their kids in New York City and my next-door neighbor reported he saw my oldest roll through a stop sign.
After that series of coincidences, my girls believed me when I said, I knew someone everywhere.
How did you meet your significant other?
Many years ago I was a runner up in a Fort Worth Star Telegram contest about the serendipitous meeting of my spouse. He’s my ex-spouse now.
Summer of 1981, my dad rented a small single engine airplane and flew my mom and him back to Iowa. It was my dad’s 25th high school reunion. (For reference my 50th reunion is next year.)
They hired a young pilot to fly them to their final destination and paid for him to return home. My dad was the friendliest man alive. He invited this pilot out to Las Vegas (our home) and said he’d set him up with his daughter.
After the stop in Iowa they were headed for a meeting in Minneapolis/St.Paul. However my dad’s pilot license only allowed him to fly if he could see the ground. The day they left SE Iowa and flew north it because cloudy and they were forced to land in Waterloo, IA.
Six months later this pilot showed up and my dad paid for him to take me out. Yes pathetic but Daddy was very generous.
On New Year’s Day the pilot returned from California and asked me out again. This second meeting we really clicked. Three months later we were engaged and married by August.
I always thought about if it had been a sunny day we would have never met.
Our marriage lasted 30 years before he moved onto someone younger, but he gave me the greatest gift. I have two beautiful, loving, generous and Christ loving daughters and he is their dad.
If you had to get a tattoo right now, what would it be and why?
I already have one tattoo. It says La Vie est belle. It’s French for Life is beautiful. I’d get one that said, Savourez la vie and pray it is a correct translation of Savor life.
I happen to glance over at the window and this is what I saw. Rémy sitting on the window sill but rather than watching the birds outside, she had her eye on me.
She is a sweet cat, big, black and fluffy. Her sister is small, is black and white and is always darting from room to room, scaring me.
They couldn’t be more different but they make life interesting.
If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?
Do not rush through life trying to reach all the milestones. Savor being single, travel, move to France, wait to marry and have kids. Explore opportunities, write that book.
Just do not rush for fear those milestones will never happen.
How do you deal with uncertainty?
For most of my life I was a control freak. The more I controlled, the more anxiety I had but was convinced if I had control the anxiety would be relieved.
Ask my daughters and they will confirm I did my best to control everyone and everything around me. It’s genetic. My grandmother controlled my mother. My mother did her best to control me but wasn’t always successful.
I didn’t control my girls as much, but I definitely exercised control when I could.
Then one day I realized that control was a mirage. I never had had control. When my world came crashing down, it was a tough lesson.
Now I understand control is a mirage. The only constant is the Lord. And He is always full of surprises.
So mostly now I don’t even think about uncertainty. As long as I live, what happens in life will be uncertain. And I can trust it’ll all work out.
How to make friends when you’re over 65
I find myself in a weird spot. I moved to my current location because my Daughter and Son-in-law were here, but when he finished his medical residency, they moved to Northeastern Pennsylvania my younger daughter lives in Sunny Southern California. I cannot afford to live in either one of those places.
My friends from before being divorced have not stayed in contact even though I’ve tried. A couple do stay in contact, but they are very rich and travel and have second homes. They’re always going on trips and I can’t afford to do that plus they are married or they’re single with money.
I am divorced. I work full-time as a Nanny. I’m not a widow. I’m not retired. I’m obviously not married and sadly I find that most women in my age bracket are either married, retired, or widowed. I’m not free to do things during the day and as often as I hear, I love friends in all age brackets, I’ve yet to have one Mother younger than I am, invite me for coffee.
I try to understand because they see me as their mother and not as a potential friend.
I’ve searched online for social groups, but at my age they seem to all meet during the day and I’m not available. I do go to church but again I find no women in my current life stage.
The town I live in is not super small, but it’s not a metropolitan area. There are no museums. There are no concerts for well-known acts. The local community college needs all sorts of paperwork that I no longer have, to be admitted to take a class. I drive to the largest metropolitan area sometimes on the weekend to take cooking classes, but everybody in the class lives in that area and I’m over an hour away. I do go to a library book club but it’s super small and everyone is busy.
This town does not feel like home because Home is where your heart is and my heart is in Pennsylvania and California. I pray diligently and faithfully that God will lead me in the direction I need to go. I just haven’t heard God speak to me in so many years.
Is anyone else out there in my situation?
What’s a quote that perfectly describes your outlook on life?
There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
I have always identified with Anne Shirley. She isn’t like everyone else who accepts things as they are. She has many versions of herself. It’s not because she changes to fit in. I believe it’s because each new discovery changes her.
And that is what I believe my life has been like. I remember after I married, my mom would say things like, “I didn’t know you liked …..” It wasn’t a bad thing to say. It was only an observation about how I had changed.
I continue to change, even at 66. And to be honest some people find this troublesome. People like things to stay the same. It’s comfortable for them. But for me staying the same means being stagnant.
I am always making an effort to learn something new. I still work on learning a foreign language. I try new recipes, new places to eat, new experiences to have like making my own soda. The world is full of simple and spectacular lessons to learn.
Love of learning does that to a person. The more you experience and the more you learn, it’s impossible to stay the same.
What is your favorite quote?
“Blemishes on the beauty of a person one loves are like grace notes adding something to a piece of music.”
We live in a society that promotes and expects perfection in body and face, especially in women. Botox, plastic surgery, laser treatments, fillers, lip fillers, GLP-1, diets, exercise etc.
But is perfection something we should strive for? If we erase wrinkles, stretch marks, if we were all the same size, lips all overfilled so we look like ducks, faces pulled, frozen faces, mommy makeovers would that be better?
A grace note is a type of musical ornamentation that is usually printed smaller than regular notes and serves as a brief embellishment before a principal note.
And imperfections are the grace notes for us. God made us each unique and original. No one should look the same. We should embrace the fact we are different. We should embrace aging and not erase our life with treatments.
I struggle with aging and sometimes I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I tried Botox post divorce. I was 53 and didn’t want to look old but I need to remember Growing old is a privilege not everyone gets. Embrace our difference and embrace aging.
**Quote from the Poldark book series book 5 the Black Moon. Ross is speaking to his wife Demelza.
If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?
I would have dinner with Demelza Carne Poldark. She is my favorite character from all the books I have read and I am an avid reader.
She is beautiful but most importantly she is strong, stands up for herself, is eager to learn, compassionate, kind and forgiving.
When she holds no ill will against Francis, Ross’s cousin, for destroying their business and making them practically destitute, and goes to their home to care for them when everyone in town is ill with the putrid throat, that is forgiveness at its best.
Demelza gets ill, almost dies and her daughter does dies but again she holds no resentment. I find that is miraculous.
I love her.
What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel?
I don’t remember ever having a moment in my life that I didn’t have a desire to travel. As I’ve said before I took one of those 13 countries and six week bus trips when I was in college.
I have read books that have inspired me to travel to certain places. I read a series of books about a Norwegian family that settled in the Dakotas back in the 1800s and wanted to go to Norway. Bruno chief of police series by Martin Walker inspired me to go to the Perigord region of France.
I read the Outlander books and that inspired me to go to Scotland.
I personally just love to travel, and I love to travel to places that are rich in history.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
More than one place would be my answer. I’d like to live near my daughters, one in PA and one in Southern CA. I’d also like to have a place in the Dordogne region of France. From there I could easily explore Europe and improve my language skills.
With retirement available to me at anytime beginning in August, I’ve begun to think about what will I do.
I only came to one conclusion. I don’t think even after 10 years in this town, I’ll feel its home. Home is where your heart is and clearly mine is in PA and CA.
Is a little chaos actually good for us?
Hmm interesting question because I’ve never had a perfectly calm life. There have been small parts that have gone smoothly but just when I think all is well there is a hiccup. Most of the times the hiccups are small but periodically something comes along and knocks you for a loop.
Because of my ex husband’s behavior I I was in constant turmoil. My chest would grow tight, a knot would form in my stomach and I lived like I was in an emotional torture chamber. I never had a peaceful night of sleep. It got worse when the police called the house looking for him. The detective told me in a very condescending tone, “you don’t know your husband.” Needless to say I was in a state of panic and the remnants remain today. I lived a kind of internal chaos everyday.
Chaos may make us appreciate the smooth times when they come but after having lived the way I did, I would prefer no chaos.
What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?
When I was in university I saw a poster for a group trip to Europe. I think it was 13 countries in six weeks. We would meet in London.
I worked and saved while everyone told me it was a fake poster and I’d regret my decision. I’d lose money. I did what little research was available because this was many years before the internet.
My parents took me to LAX and from there I flew to London. I had paid extra for some London excursions.
Being brave enough to go alone and join a group, knowing no one, was one of the best things I ever did. I went to countries that now no longer exist. I have lifetime memories that have the ability to look at the world from different perspectives.
So happy I didn’t listen to the naysayers and trusted my gut.
What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?
As I child I believed my parents had all the answers to any question I asked. And if you ask my mother she will tell you I asked millions of questions. She will tell also you she couldn’t answer most of them, because I was an exceptionally inquisitive child.
I was an adult before I realized my parents didn’t have all the answers. How did I come to this realization? I had extraordinary daughters who asked many questions and I was positive I didn’t have all the answers.
In one way it’s a disappointment to realize your parents aren’t perfect but it’s also a relief because you no longer have to strive to be perfect.
What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?
I heard once happiness is based on happenings, so it is always contingent on what is going on in your life. If you have difficult days then happiness suffers. And if you have a difficult year then happiness is fleeting.
However joy is based on deeper things, most importantly your relationship with Christ. Because while your circumstances may change, God never changes. You know you are not alone and will never be alone.
I’ll admit I have first hand knowledge of basing happiness on your circumstances. If you never have struggles or heartaches or sad days then keep basing happiness on the happenings in your life. But if you are like the rest of us and have difficult days, or weeks, or months, or years, it’s imperative you find your source of joy.
I let my divorce steal 4 years of my life that I can never get back. All I could see was how much my life has changed, focusing only on the negative aspects. Then one day my heart was introduced to a very little boy and everything began to change.
I realized I had never been alone. The Lord had a plan all along for me and for my greater joy. I had only been focusing on insignificant and transient things while He was focused on eternity.
Now I base my happiness on the never changing, always loving Lord, knowing He will always be with me in hard times and good times. It’s my job to trust and joy will come. And joy is deeper and more satisfying than unpredictable happiness.
Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?
I am a native English speaker and I’m very saddened to know America doesn’t encourage or promote learning another language. In reading the prompts most native English speakers speak only English unless they grew up in a dual language household. One language gives you only one way to see things. And honestly, while I make grammatical errors, the quality of English spoken in America gets worse and worse everyday.
A professor told me speaking another language lets you see the world through different eyes. I have always remembered his words.
Where I live I need to speak Spanish. Half of my grandkids’ school are Spanish speakers and many are enrolled in English as a second language. I’d love to take a course but can’t find one that works with my work schedule
At the age of eleven I started learning French in school. I stopped at the age of 14.5 yrs old. Entering college I started the language journey again and took French classes for three years. I wanted to study abroad but my dad said we couldn’t afford it. He said pick a major and graduate. I’ve regretted not finding a way to go abroad because honestly I think I would have returned upon graduation and stayed abroad.
As an adult I began again at the Alliance Français in Dallas. For my 40th birthday, I spent a week at a language school. And post divorce I spent 3 months at a language school. I watch French tv, movies and do language apps on my phone. I do not speak fluently and need people to speak slowly so I can understand them. However my love affair with the French language continues.
J’ai une belle vie. ❤️
The Power of Story
Pieces of the Whole
Writing New Chapters when Life takes a Detour
read what you love
Enriching my life with books
My life on an unexpected path 