Tag: #California

The Journey

Posted on June 3, 2022 by JANET L BARKER

PREFACE Today is my 66th birthday. In 14 years, I might be dead. Gruesome, I know. But my dad, 14 years hence my current age, had open heart surgery at 80 and my mom, she died in her 60s–my age, I believe. So, there you… Continue Reading “The Journey”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #California, #eberlewine, #education, #grandparents, #growingold, #hope, #loveeverymoment, #maryoliver, #parentofadultchildren, #retiredteacher, #retirement, #sellingthefamilyhome, #teachers, #teaching, #thenextchapter, #wisdom

Love and loss

Posted on May 30, 2022 by JANET L BARKER

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It is, without debate, a glorious Sunday before Memorial Day. Low 70s, slight breeze, monarchs dancing in the misty currents, absence of sirens from the Hermosa Beach Fiesta festivities, skywriting planes overhead, two impending offers on my house, another showing later this afternoon, and… Continue Reading “Love and loss”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #California, #coronavirus19, #education, #grandparents, #hope, #loveeverymoment, #memorialday, #retiredteacher, #retirement, #teachers, #teaching, #texas

It’s been a long time since I …

Posted on February 23, 2022 by JANET L BARKER

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…woke up at 4 a.m. and started writing. No deadline. No subject matter in particular. Just the rumblings of life. Maybe it’s the wind. There’s a turbulence, a change, a danger lurking in the moon-lit, cloud-filled sky. Something new. Something old. Are the raccoons… Continue Reading “It’s been a long time since I …”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #bestfriends, #California, #change, #cousins, #grandparent, #grandparenting, #hope, #legacy, #love, #loveeverymoment, #moving, #parenting, #prayer, #redondobeach, #retirement, #sisters

No One Wants to Read a Blog …

Posted on February 8, 2022 by JANET L BARKER

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About complaining. About why the world is going to hell. About who’s right and who’s wrong. About Trump. About Biden. About COVID. About masks. About insane, selfish people who value their rights over the health and welfare of others. We want to read about… Continue Reading “No One Wants to Read a Blog …”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #babyshark, #Broadway, #California, #Finland, #grandma, #grandparents, #Hadestown, #hope, #llaboulangeriedefrancois, #loveeverymoment, #newyork, #nyc, #parenting, #retiredteacher, #southerncalifornia, #writinglife

Tsunami Watch

Posted on January 15, 2022 by JANET L BARKER

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Sitting in a rocking chair at my sister and cousin’s house watching the unpredicted rain, feeling the silent crisp air, gazing at the flock after flock of seagulls headed out to sea. Do they know something we don’t know? Will the tide retreat? Will… Continue Reading “Tsunami Watch”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #California, #coronavirus19, #grandparents, #hope, #love, #loveeverymoment, #retirement, #teachers, #teaching, #tsunamiwatch

Returning to The Center

Posted on December 17, 2021 by JANET L BARKER

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You know when you feel like crying but you don’t, you suck it up, you dab your eyes, distract yourself by talking to strangers like the man standing next to you in the TSA line at JFK flying home to Barbados for his father’s… Continue Reading “Returning to The Center”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #California, #change, #grandparenting, #grandparents, #hope, #JFK, #love, #loveeverymoment, #newyork, #passages, #retired, #retirement, #travelinggrandma

Babies, Toddlers and Life in the Big City

Posted on December 5, 2021 by JANET L BARKER

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It’s hot. It’s cold. I’m sweating in the overheated apartment or I’m freezing on a jaunt to the Queens Farm Museum with two-week-old Hudson and 20-month-old big sis, Millie. I’m limping with a sore left knee that doctors here need a referral to fix… Continue Reading “Babies, Toddlers and Life in the Big City”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #California, #daughters, #education, #grandparents, #hope, #legacy, #loveeverymoment, #newyorkcity, #nyc, #Queens, #retiredteacher, #retirement, #teaching, #wine

Autumn River

Posted on October 30, 2021 by JANET L BARKER

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May the peace that transcends all understanding pass through you. Words to this effect, or maybe precisely these words, concluded our Sunday service at Christ Episcopal Church in Redondo Beach, a congregation I was “led” to after my mother died of emphysema in 1981. As she… Continue Reading “Autumn River”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #395, #California, #camping, #cherisheachday, #christepiscopalchurch, #convictlake, #easternsierras, #eurovancamper, #grace, #grandparent, #hope, #ilovecalifornia, #loveeverymoment, #loveiskind, #retiredteacher, #retirement, #stmargaretepiscopalchurch, #transcendence

Pieces of the Puzzle

Posted on October 14, 2021 by JANET L BARKER

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Chapter One: The Little Girl My earliest memories: Mom, sitting at the sparkly canary yellow Formica kitchen table, smoking Pall Mall’s with her friend and next-door neighbor, Marian. I was about three. We had a calico cat named Penny, and a toad who lived… Continue Reading “Pieces of the Puzzle”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #1950s, #California, #education, #england, #grandparents, #grappenhall, #hope, #loveeverymoment, #memoir, #mothers, #postwar, #redondobeach, #retirement, #teaching, #truth

life is like a box of chocolates . . .

Posted on July 9, 2021 by JANET L BARKER

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Jumble, jumble, jumble. Mumble, mumble, errr, errr…wipe the slate clean…wait, I can’t, not now, stay put, be patient, “You may not realize it now, but the Universe is unfolding as it should,” reads a sign tucked in the lemon tree in northwest corner of… Continue Reading “life is like a box of chocolates . . .”

Category: UncategorizedTags: #artjournaling, #babies, #boisset, #booklover, #California, #chardonnay, #doglove, #dogresuce, #frenchsparklingwine, #grandparents, #hope, #loveeverymoment, #retiredteacher, #retirement, #rose

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