About Me

Updated July 9, 2019

I am a 45-year-old widowed mom living her "chapter two" with a wonderful new love. My children are 19 and 13, and I have a foster kid who is 18. We also have a cat.

I graduated from high school, have taken several college courses and completed vocational training. I have had only four paying jobs in my life: the local movie theater when I was a teenager, as a "mother's helper" for a friend who had twins, as the Parish Secretary for my church at the time and now as a "personal shopper" for my local Wal-Mart.

I am visually impaired. I lost the sight in my left eye when I was 15 and my right eye acted up when I was 18 and 19 which left me corrected (with glasses) to around 20/200. I can see, but it's blurry, or sometimes I describe it as "dirty". Good lighting makes a big difference. I wear bifocals and can read with the bottom portion, which is how I can see the computer screen and such. The biggest thing I can't do is drive.

I have a strong sense of fairness, am politically liberal, open-minded and tolerant, and believe wholeheartedly in leading with love. But I am not a doormat. I believe in God, Jesus and angels...and universal truth and karma. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I try not to judge. I think you can love someone, but not always like them. I'm a multitasker, yet I sometimes procrastinate. I have a great sense of humor. I think I'm a good person.

I'm pretty big into watching TV and movies and listening to a wide range of music (I dig pop culture in general). I also enjoy reading (or listening) and have dabbled in scrapbooking, but haven't touched it in years, even though I keep insisting that I will at least fill the books I have. I know how to knit and crochet, but am a huge chicken to try anything complicated. I'm a quoter; love me some good quotes! Oh, I kinda love coffee too.

I started this blog in the spring of 2010 just because.  Literally just because people blog about stuff and so could I, so why not? I just had a blog, I wasn't necessarily a blogger.

I started out writing about day-to-day life. My late husband and I were buying a house at the time which was very exciting. For awhile after that I thought maybe blogging was silly for me because I didn't think my life was really very interesting and maybe it's just completely narcissistic anyway. I mean, my life is interesting to me, but to others? So I didn't write anything for a couple of months, but then the "night from hell" happened.

The "night from hell" was the night of my late husband Mark's double bypass surgery when his heart stopped three times. After that incredibly scary night I was kind of traumatized (PTSD, anyone?), so my BFF suggested that maybe writing about it would help. I gave it some thought and wrote The First Step, which rebooted my blogging.

Now though, I must admit, my blogging has dried up. A strange thing happened after Mark died: I suddenly became more private. Which I did, ironically, write about here. I have stepped away from vomiting my stuff for public consumption, but I am keeping my blog active just in case someone searches something that leads them here and it's somehow helpful. I do still use Facebook and Instagram semi-regularly.

Just one more thing:  I went through A LOT with my late husband in our 22 years together (much of which you can read about here), and no matter whatever else happens as I move forward with my life, his chronic health problems and death, and the effects on myself and our children, are always in the background. Always.

If anyone can glean anything from my musings, insights, revelations, trauma, humor, grief, perspective....then I'll think that's pretty damn awesome.

You can contact me at JHALL345 (at) gmail (dot) com