I am partial to handwritten letters. The kind you scribe on paper or board or photographs, and put in a stamped envelope. The kind you trust to survive the mysterious infrastructure of mail boxes, bags, bins and conveyer belts, sorters and mail carriers, and inclement weather, until it arrives at its destination, with pieces of your heart in tow. When I was 13 and away at summer camp, Gramma Kenyon wrote me a letter. I remember the morning mail call, when the camp counselor called my name and everyone gathered around to hear the news from home. “Your mom had…
This month, I spent two days at the Military.com Spouse Summit (#milspsum) in Vienna, VA, with military spouses from near and far, all with a single-minded purpose: to help military families. Each person attending had his or her own niche and brought individual talents and perspective to the table. It was inspiring, enlightening, and fun! (Group photo on SpouseBUZZ Facebook). Look for follow up posts about the event topics on SpouseBUZZ. For those of you who couldn’t be there, I want to introduce you to just a few of the awesome people I had the pleasure of spending time with: Jacey Eckhart served as master…
The first day of spring in Minnesota, we awoke to a 7-degree day, -11 with wind chill. We still had 3 feet of snow in our yard. Spring seemed far away. As the snow ever so slowly melts, I’m reminded that a change of season is not always easy. We like to forget about the ugly yet natural steps in the transition. Spring conjures images of daffodils, dandelions, tulips, and warm breezy days. But spring is also mud and dirty piles of lingering snow. Rabbit poop, uprooted trunks, and other emerging evidence of what all those critters were doing in…
Ten years ago today, my husband Bob died of cancer. We call it his heaven birthday. Bob loved to hike in the mountains. When our son, Alexander, turned 10, my sister Lori and I took him on his first big hiking trip. He had spent a couple years reading about national parks and planning where he wanted to begin his mountain climbing adventures. He wanted to be just like his dad, high up in the peaks. Alexander chose age 10 to begin his hiking quest, because in his words, that’s when he would be a good listener and not fall…
Karen’s life experience is intertwined with her roles as a wife, mom, stepmom, writer, publisher, photographer, traveler, and woman of faith. All these elements tend to make their way into her blog posts.
“Writers have to write. It’s something deep inside us that pushes and pushes until we let it out. It’s part of the air we breathe, this need to make sense of the world around us and to somehow find the right words to express and influence the way we each feel and interact and love and live.”—Writing is Risky Business
© 2018 - Karen M. Pavlicin-Fragnito