Writing - the ups and downs

 Sisters and Friends Forever! Donna Sue and Bobbie My birthday gift of a poem to her a few years ago Today my sister Donna Sue Null Hoffman would be 77 years old. Three years without her has left a hole in my days. She called every day to check on me. She was like a second mother when we moved from our childhood home, I was five and she was eleven, and my mom remarried and worked full time. She took me under her wing and continued looking out for me until the day she died. One of the last things she told me when she was very ill in the hospital just before her death was she needed to take me shopping at Beall's (FL) and buy me clothes. She'd learned that I had bought some clothes at a local thrift store. (I love thrift stores. Her - not so much.) I asked her then what Beall's had that she liked so much. She said, "Pretty things." I asked her how she intended to get us to Beall...

I'm enjoying the spring weather that has finally arrived in Ohio bringing blooming pear trees, red buds and tulip trees. How about you? Do you love spring as much as I do? I spent a day on the patio, putting out the table, chairs, umbrella. I painted a white wicker plant table and have decided it's too good for the patio. I plan to use it in the bathroom instead. Just when I thought winter would last forever, spring arrived with temperatures in the 70's. I noted buds covering my rose bush and a robin building a nest in the crevice of my chimney. I wanted to let them stay but they managed to leave so much debris at my front door that I had no choice but to shoo them away. Hopefully they've moved on to one of the many trees and bushes in my community, a more cozy place for raising babies. When I was a kid growing up in Putnam County, WV, I was outside at the first glimpse of the sun coming through my bedroom window. I ran through our yard, down through the orcha...