I am hoping you can help me. I would like to pick one post to enter into the Irish Parenting Blog Awards in the category of Best Blog Post. I know I have a lot of miserable poignant posts, but I spent all of ten minutes revisting my old posts this evening and these caught my eye.

My Life in Words

When the last door closes.

Enjoy them while they are small.

If you have time I am hoping you will vote for one of them here, or if you have another you prefer you can add it in the comments.

Thanks a million.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Nature trumps all human plans. How quickly and unexpectedly it can ground us

Grounded–that’s the word used when airlines have to cancel flights for weather. And that’s what has also happened in the area where I live, North Texas, for much of this past week. And it is my situation on Sunday morning.

Although much of the ice/snow mix melted late yesterday, there are still patches of ice everywhere. Many churches around here cancelled services for the sake of the safety of their parishioners. The last thing I need at this point in life is a broken bone from a fall on an invisible piece of black ice, so I have also chosen to stay home.

In 2010, an Iceland volcano erupted and spewed ash all over northern Europe, grounding all flights in that part of the world. My oldest son lives in London but was…

The number of kids with incarcerated parents has increased nearly 80% in the last 20 years, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. More than 2.7 million children have a parent who is incarcerated, and parents of another 10 million children have been incarcerated at some point.  The experience can be profoundly difficult for children, increasing their risk of living in poverty and housing instability, as well as causing emotional trauma, pain, and social stigma.http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/reading-inside

But, through programs like the Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa Storybook Project, some of that stress melt away when kids are able to visit their parent and read a special book together. Through an audio-tape reading program wherein imprisoned parents/grandparents read books to their children/grandchildren on tape, family bonds are strengthened and literacy skills improve as they encourage their children to read with them and in their absence.

The Storybook Project recruits…