Introduction to my Blog

               I have been told that I am quite a storyteller.  My Daughters roll their eyes when they hear me start, as they feel they have heard them all, more than once.  As a practicing Dental Hygienist for over 30 years, I learned pretty early in my career that I was not going to be universally loved by my patients.  As a matter of fact, my Mom upon hearing what I wanted to study in college was “grossed out” as she felt that going to the dentist was akin to having a Baby.  For so very many reasons, I thank God for my chosen profession, as I have been able to give my Family a fairly comfortable life. 

                As always, I digress, but one of the ways I have always tried to make my Patients as comfortable as is possible in a dental chair, I would tell stories, and listen to theirs.  Putting people on their back has a funny way of getting them to open up, in more ways than one.

Air Force Academy, a photo by jorge_dfw on Flickr.

                Besides my Girls, Family, and Friends, my biggest passion in my life is probably travel.  I started by visiting my Uncle who was a Chaplain in the Air Force, visiting him at different Bases along the East Coast while I was in high school.  Then after college, since I had lived at home, I desperately needed to move and grow.  I took baby steps and moved to the Air Force Academy where my Uncle was then stationed.  That was like being a kid in the proverbial candy store.  Having gone to an all girl Catholic high school followed by Dental Hygiene school which was virtually all girls, being surrounded by 4000 young men in uniform was a pretty heady experience.  And fun!

Clockhouse #1 @ Rookery Park in Yoxford, England

                I fell in love with one of those Cadets, married very young, and found myself living in Texas on the Mexican border.  Very interesting.  From there we spent three months in Tuscon, Arizona on our way to England for three years.  That was when the travel bug bit hard.  We lived on an honest to God English country estate in the countryside northeast of London.  My Officer and not so Gentleman flew often in Germany, so I was able to explore Bavaria.  Another time that His squadron had to go fly in Italy, I joined a group of Wives and we met our Fighter Pilots to play in Italy for a week. 

                Unfortunately my life and career as an Officers Wife was short lived as my not so Gentleman left us for a Christian Lady, so after going through a bit of a nightmarish hell for a year in Texas, again, I came back to Boston to raise my Girls in the bosom of my wild and wacky love-filled Irish Catholic clan.

                The travel bug that bit me oh those many years ago has been fulfilled in many various ways over the years.  I think I’ll begin this blog with the story of my “Winter in Manhattan Odyssey” that I gifted myself last year.