Author Archives: Alison Patton

Hello readers, I am back from my blogging sabbatical. I appreciated and enjoyed the emails from some of you during my absence (particularly one concerned email asking if I’d died. That one gave me a chuckle!). Nope, I’m still around, with no good excuse for dropping out of sight other than having an extremely busy […]

Healing from divorce is a long process.  Everyone eventually recovers and finds happiness, but the first year or two is more about grief than new life.  I wish it could be different, but that’s just the way it is for most people. Personally I’ve experienced grief twice in my life, and both times it felt […]

We have four cats—all hunters who, despite the bell we affix to their collars, regularly bring us catches from the canyon:  mice, rats, birds, lizards, even an occasional baby rabbit and King snake.  As early as six-years old, my kids became adept at either rescuing a still-live animal from the cat’s mouth (which they’d release […]

I am reminded of a quote by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons): “Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.” (And this applies whether you’re married, separated, divorced or single.) Good luck and hang in there!

(photo by Anant N S) You never know where you’re going to get the next piece of wisdom. Yesterday my son and I were at Trader Joe’s grocery store, enjoying a quick morning chat with a store employee named Wendy who runs the sample station. Wendy is one of those persons who knows how to […]