First of all, I am a single mother and grandmother who is writing a blog in order to share my opinions (and some aspects of my life) with family, friends, and anyone else who cares to read it. My family and friends are scattered throughout the world, and this gives them a place to see what I’ve been thinking and doing, at their leisure. I tend to be fairly verbose in my emails and even on Facebook, so this saves people the hassle of “having” to look at my writings. And it saves me from writing a lot of emails (I do not usually send emails to multiple recipients).

Second, this blog can be used by my family to inform their doctors of any family illnesses that might affect them, be hereditary, or have a bearing on their diagnoses/treatments. I never was able to get a correct, complete health history from my family of origin, and most of them have passed on now. I don’t want my children/grandchildren to have the same problem. The rest of you can skip over those parts, if you like.

Third, I want to have a journal for future generations to read, so they can see what life was like in the first half of this century – from my point-of-view, of course. The format for electronic
journaling will probably change with time, but at least what’s written now has a better chance of surviving the years than, say, a paper diary – as paper can get lost, torn, or destroyed in any number of ways.

How I wish my great-grandparents had created a written record of their lives in Ireland, and when they first came to the United States! What was it like for them, this
“mixed-marriage” couple (she, a Protestant nurse from England and he, a Catholic pharmacist
from Ireland), in their native countries and abroad? What relatives did they leave behind? What was it like to establish their new lives in Chicago?

Not only would that have made an interesting read, it might have helped with finding current relatives in England and Ireland, a task that has not been fruitful. Even the current Chicago descendents aren’t sure where the Irish part of the family originated from, or if there are any descendents still there. It will become evident the more I write about my life why this information is so important to me.

Fourth, some – if not most – of my opinions are based on my personal experiences as a former research assistant/grad student at the University of Memphis with an MSc in psychology (concentration in experimental psych working in discourse, AI, and the cognitive processes involved in creativity), a mental health therapist, a survivor of domestic/child abuse, a person with disabilities and a chronic illness, a patient in the healthcare system, and a supporter of disability rights (particularly in the ‘controversial’ area of quality of life).

I am also Wiccan.  Beliefs are beliefs, and science is science, and I never confuse the two.  I don’t see a contradiction in believing in magick in my spiritual life and taking a scientific approach to my day-to-day material/physical life.

To give an example, I will go ghosthunting with you if you like, but it’s going to take a lot more than a so-called medium “feeling” things, an indistinct recording of sounds that our minds can incorrectly interpret as words, pictures of “orbs”, or creaking boards to convince me a place is haunted.  Oh don’t get me wrong, I have been in what I believed were haunted places (some I lived in), but it took really “you-can’t-ignore-this”, in-your-face events to get me to concede that, indeed, a ghost might be involved.

That’s who I am.  People who love me accept the idiosyncracies, thankfully.

If it upsets or annoys you to read about any of these things, then just skip over them. Remember that a lot of this is not aimed at anyone in particular, and these are MY opinions. I am not writing this blog to argue with people, convince them of my viewpoint, or cause an uproar. If anything, I write to express myself, and to let others who care know about what’s going on in my head.

This is a drama-free blog.

At any rate, here is the record of (parts of) my life, and how I see the world.