Hello, welcome to my blog!

I find myself at a crossroads. I have always thought of myself one way: a hard worker who is dedicated to certain passions, fairly honest and likely to have a fair amount of success if I kept my nose to the grindstone and worked hard. But, like a lot of Americans, the bottom has fallen out for me recently when I was laid off this past March after struggling for months to juggle work and home, and I am trying to decide what to do now to pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with things at this stage in life. I am responsible for my 90 year old mother who is in failing health and my two young adult daughters have both struggled with addiction issues, eating disorders and depression. Both live at home currently and are on divirgent paths (one is in recovery and doing fairly well, the other is on a fast path to self destruction). So, I am torn between knowing that my career window is closing if I don't re-enter the work place soon, not to mention which the worry over how the mortgage will get paid, with believing that staying home for a time to try and wrestle with the personal issue is really where I need to be.

It has been exhausting juggling all those balls, let alone trying to maintain a marriage, so I feel isolated and alone a lot of the time, but I am willing to bet there are others out there with my same fears, passions and troubles, so I thought I would dip my toes into the waters of modern technology and see if I can find others who are like me. Maybe together we can build a community of women, and some men, who can help one another in our struggles to help our children find their way to success and contentment, help our aging parents live their last years in dignity and find ways to keep our own heads above water. My best case scenario is that we can learn from one another's experiences. But, I think I will settle for just knowing and allowing others to know that we are not alone, even though somedays it feels that way.

In days to come, I will share more about my personal experiences and hope they will sometimes be funny, maybe sometimes touching, but always a source of encouragement for other women out there to know they have a kindred spirit.