Category: I Was Here

A Second Round

Every few years, I catch something of an upper respiratory nature and it hands me a humbling dose of reality as to how low my immune system has become. In a prior post I shared I had caught some kind of crud / cold / infection (insert whatever non-diagnosed descriptor you have here). After 2-3 weeks, I began to mend and felt nearly back to normal. But alas, it wasn’t really gone.

A few days later, those familiar joint aches, temperature fluctuations, and coughing spasms came back but this time, with a vengeance. Round two included chest rattling wheezing and coughing. Sleep disappeared again for two weeks.

I pulled a muscle in my back and around my ribs from the incessant coughing fits that woke me multiple times each night and made virtual work meetings impossible. Needless to say, it’s been a long time since I’ve been that sick. Fortunately, this time I avoided throat pain.

A quick S.O.S to my primary care physician brought me harder-hitting medications, antibiotics, and nebulizer treatments to get me through it. It was a struggle still, as if the chest wheezing and horrible sounding coughs were not going down without a fight. Despite crossing the line of having taking all the antibiotics for three weeks, I still had a cough no one wanted to be around.

I am back on my feet (again), this time hopefully for good. It was a ride I don’t want to take again, but I’m also grateful an upper respiratory was all it was. Things can always be worse.

You First

Daily writing prompt
What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?
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Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels

When you are out there in the world, living on your own and paying your own bills for the first time – prioritize you first. Your dreams, savings, free time, adventures and travel – put you first. Let the relationships and career building come after. Get to know yourself before anyone or anything else.

Build a savings strategy for retirement for you first. See how it’s feeling when it’s going forward over the years.

Spend free nights and weekends with yourself first. See what YOU like doing before you start adapting to other people’s time.

Dream for yourself alone, first. Fortify your future vision with your heart’s desires, always, first.

Take trips (sometimes) just for yourself. See where your own wanderlust takes you before you follow other people’s agendas.

Journal. Just let it flow and see what you notice and what is underneath all the things.

Learn about the progress you are making and the changes you are seeing before you try changing someone else.

Decorate for yourself first. Sure, change your preferences repeatedly. See how they all feel in time.

Determine your own style first. Wear it. Change it up. Learn how you feel when you present yourself in different ways. Discover new versions of you.

Try to develop skills yourself first, then lean on other people if they are better, later. You might be surprised what you are good at.

I wish, looking back, I could have had the foresight to know that a sense of personal achievement would not come from finally having a marriage or a certain amount of money or a level of job title. Trusting that if I had all these pieces in place, all the sense of peace and happiness would follow, was a mistake. I am fortunate that in the future, I didn’t lose everything or fall entirely apart as a result. But I sure struggled and hurt more than I probably had to.

For any twenty-something folks out there reading this too: Hang on to all those dreams and wishes of the list above when it pertains to other people, relationships, careers and money. For sure, it’s not all bad. But when you get the choice early on to start investing your time, your dollars, your energy or your someday vision of happiness on other things – take that opportunity to do it for you first. It’s amazing how much easier and enjoyable the rest will follow if you build that awareness with yourself first.

It’s a Goat!

Living out in the country there is not much sets off our motion detectors on our front porch. So it was curious when, sitting on my sofa Sunday night, I caught the lights flicking on out of the corner of my eye.

My other half was in the kitchen and I asked him to take a peak. A moment later, I heard him say with surprise, “It’s a goat!”.

I came over and sure enough, there were a small goat looking into our windows out in the freezing temperatures. I quietly slipped outside and it showed no fear. A moment later, it confidently ambled up the steps and joined me as I sat on the steps.

My mind flashed back to a post on our community’s social media page that someone found a goat just like this one, along with it’s guardian livestock dog, out on a dirt road. But it had been found.

Or….possibly it got out again.

So after a quick friending on Facebook and a DM later, the goat family was on their way. Mouse Track, as I would later learn her name was, and I got along famously. I lead her to our garage and brought her in. My husband brought out a few planters of our cat’s oat grass for her to munch on to pass the time. She had the most gentle way and soft eyes that cautiously trusted.

The family soon pulled up and after a few handshakes and introductions, we reunited all. And little Mouse Track lovingly saw her human, gently head butted her and immediately went to sleep with her head pressed to her human’s leg. This goat was certainly well-loved and cared for. Another human scooped her up and loaded her into the truck carrier and off they went.

Who knows what we will find the next time the porch light turns on!

Looking Back on 2025: The Aurora Borealis

11Nov2025 Aurora borealis view off of our back deck via iPhone camera on night settings.

Looking back on 2025, the one post I wished I had included that I missed publishing when it happened was the aurora borealis. It was on my bucket list and a total surprise that it happened as far south as Wyoming. We saw weather updates that it might happen, but part of me didn’t think it actually would.

11Nov2025 Aurora borealis view off of our back deck via iPhone camera on night settings.

Cameras using nighttime settings seems to be able to capture more vivid coloration and contrast of the borealis than the human eye can. These pictures have not been purposefully edited to make them more vivid, but those night settings did make them more vibrant.

In case you’re curious, this short video is what the northern lights looked like with my normal camera’s video settings and what my eyes saw:

11Nov2025 Video of naked eye view of the aurora borealis from our back deck in Cheyenne, WY

I never really felt or believed that any of my bucket list items would come true. (It’s a super short list presently and remaining opportunities are pretty out there). But as I stood there that night, I was filled with so much satisfying peace that if I don’t achieve any others in the coming years, I was blessed with this special one.

I saw the aurora borealis at least once. And it was everything I hoped it would be. Hopefully, I’ll get to see it again someday.

December and Dusted

My trusty Christmas tree that I love because it looks like it came right out of the woods

December has left me done and dusted and the white flag is flying.

Everyone feels the stresses and fatigue of the traditional holidays in different ways. I doubt anyone sails easily through the end of year weeks seamlessly and peaceful. But rather than fight the hustle, or sacrifice myself on the alter of holiday martyrdom, I chose to just not try to win it all this year. I chose a smaller frame that would hold the vision of this year’s December, but it was a frame I could manage.

Our tree unfluffed and with the top still tilted after being retrieved from the storage box.

Choosing to not pull out all the decorations, to let our flocked tree shine as itself without ornaments, and to go with just our stockings at first felt like laziness. Then I considered how well I would have gotten on with the lack of sleep and job fatigue if I had tried to do it all, and I know it was the right way to go this year.

Our stockings. The gifts and juice below already staged to take to another family event.

Admittedly, this is a luxury when you do not have children. There is a heavier squat rack to get under when you are a parent during the holidays. Less was more and it helped as I stretched to cover needs at work and travel for family. It also made me feel better about being able to reorganize next for a fresh start into 2026.

This gift from my husband’s employers was all that made it onto the tree, after the fact.

In closing, the best gift we received this year was of course, Fury herself. The other day we looked down and there she was, folded up into the tissue paper she loves so much, as if she had tried to wrap herself up. It still brings a sweet smile to my heart each time I look at her here.

Hi Mom! I love the way tissue paper feels on the toe beans!

I hope everyone out there had the holiday they wanted. And if you found more challenge than celebration, I wish you rest and peace soon as we are nearly there to the end of the year. Hang in there friend!

Taste the Apples

Photo by Tom Swinnen via Pexels

Welcome! I am setting up shop to combine several blogs that span many years with the posts of the present. I used other sites from the past to capture different seasons of life. It felt right, back then, to start fresh each time with a new site and a new outlook. But here I am in middle age wanting to string it all together.

Maybe it’s age or perhaps it is a desire to steer towards calmer waters after a tumultuous last few years. I seek joy, peace, and wisdom more than anything else nowadays. Sometimes we find ourselves wanting to look back and reflect. We know more with gained experience and can look back with thoughtful hindsight.

I may never check off all the items on my bucket list and I may never have my own children to pass things down to. But I have lived these stories. And I am still journeying; sometimes with the fellowship of others and sometimes in solitude. But until the posts stop, I will keep doing the very best I can as I experience as much as I can, as best I can.

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”

Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum