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Dear Readers,

The saying from the Wizard Of Oz, "There's No Place Like Home" would be the best way to summarize how meeting Mike {ski date} falling in love with him and moving into his home would be. For the very first time in my life, I felt like I was HOME! A place where I was intended to be. In a warm & cozy little house complete with a glowing fireplace, 2 big Labradors and most importantly a gentle, kind man which I adore. I had used the words, "I love you" to other men in my life, but it wasn't until Mike, that I really found the true meaning of those words.
Mike swings into action and makes sure that i have my dream setting by building me a big chicken coop and filling it with assorted pretty chickens for egg playing. Then no home is complete without a couple of baby sheep and a funny little goat, right!?
I will work on a little burro some time in the future. Mike had made a back yard swing for adults and we sit and swing, we don't have to say anything, the feelings for each other is understood and we just relax and swing. He is a tall man with big, wide shoulders and I nestle in under his arm. I am so at home here.

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MaryJanes has requested something from me year after year after year........a new name. Since she was 2 years old, she has pestered me about her name. It is now {age 16} that I give in to her appeals. "OK, lets go take care of that!" I tell her as she once again asks. The smile on her face is a mixture of true victory and utter disbelief. "Really?" she replies. "Find out what needs to be done, and I get to approve the name before it is final" I tell her.
We are off to the court house with a mission of renaming my daughter to a more fitting name. If you can recall, she wasn't named for 5 days after being born, as I could not come up with a name that suited her. So, I suppose it is only right that she picks her own, she is an independent one!
She selects a new first and middle name and we make it legal. The smile on her face is contagious. In all honesty, it really didn't take long to adjust to using her new name.
With her name came another venture, she was asked to enter a Miss Teen Wisconsin pageant. This is something I had never planned for so she and I got a quick learning lesson in the whole operation of pageants.

MaryJanes, age 16, Miss Wisconsin Pageant Evening Gown

To summarize the events of it, I am glad she took part in it, it was a great confidence builder.
It was expensive!
Preparing and shopping for the event was time well spent, just the two of us.
I see now that when we shopped, I was steering her in to attire more geared for the Miss Wisconsin Pageant. It was very apparent when we got to the hotel the weekend of the event, she didn't look like a teen contestant. She was mistaken for a Miss Wisconsin contestant several times. And as it turns out, the judges were looking for a fun, zesty TEEN. Here I was trying to help her by telling her to be so confident and act professional, when I should have told her to just have fun and be a kid. I would have never made a good pageant mother! I am too competitive.
There is a funny story that comes from the whole experience, when MaryJanes turned 17 years old, that very day, she enlisted into the Army National Guard and they used her picture as a "poster child" to recruit other teens.
There on a big poster was my little girl's picture, with the words, ARMY National Guard written underneath. Mike and I did not try to talk MaryJanes out of enlisting, we told her that is was going to be challenging especially for a girlie girl. When the recruiter, Augie came to have her sign papers, I had to trust that she really wanted this. She would leave and be gone during the summer of her junior and senior year of high school for basic training. She was to do a split training, basic first then senior year of high school followed by her AIT training of photojournalist. I just had to trust that she knew what she was in for. I was proud and scared all at once.

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And so that summer she got onto a bus and headed to South Carolina to experience a whole new life style........

Now Take On A Challenge.
Love, Galoshes