Home Is Where The Heart Is

Life in the country is much different than life in the city. I was raised in the Trinity Alps of northern California, but as all children do, I longed to live the exciting life of a city dweller and when I was old enough, I did exactly that. The lights, the traffic, the sirens, the pollution; it was heaven. I didn’t even need a car because there were buses that would take me anywhere I wanted to go. And of course, I wanted to go to the mall.

I had only been in a mall once before, and that was when I was about twelve. My parents took us to Portland, Oregon, to the mall and my brother, sister, and I had never seen such sights. There was an ice skating rink, and being just before the Christmas holidays, the mall was decorated with lights and displays like nothing we had ever seen. I remember running around in circles, squealing with delight and screaming for mama and daddy to come look. My parents were horribly embarrassed but I didn’t know it at the time. I just knew there was a whole new world I’d never known existed.

So when I lived in the city I spent a lot of time in the malls, especially during the holiday seasons and I still felt that little flutter of excitement just like I had all those years ago at Lloyd Center Mall. But as I grew older and had children, I found the city less and less to my liking. Times they were a-changin’ as the song says, and by the time my oldest child reached high school, there were armed guards on the school grounds, video cameras in the halls, and fences with locked gates all the way around the campus. These devices are so hi-tech that they allow the user to check his/her mails, navigate by cialis without rx GPS and organize all the investments made while on the move. Since the cost of branded medicines treatments is very high, most people now opt for cheaper options like kamagra, which works exactly like the branded medications as they contain the same active ingredients – 100mg cheapest tadalafil india associated with Sildenafil Citrate. It is taken orally with water, 60 minute before intimacy, and find for more now cialis 10 mg gives erection ranging between 4 to 6 hours that is enough time to make your sex life ecstatic. The medicine is widely available in all cialis no prescription parts of the world. The problem was I had to work in order to support my family and that meant compromise, so we moved back to the area where I had lived as a child, but to a nearby small town where I could also work and the schools hadn’t yet experienced the violence city schools had. But that day wasn’t far off, and there was yet another choice to be made. Fortunately, my work in the prison system had allowed me to receive a certification for assessing offenders and I was able to work out of my house and home school my children at the same time.

Eventually, as all children do, mine grew up, moved on and moved out. So now I had one more choice to make: Where did I really want to live? I longed for the quiet, the solitude, the peacefulness of the mountains, so we bought ten acres in a wilderness area, built a house and moved. No sirens, no traffic, no people, and thankfully, no mall. Funny how life experience can bring us back to the very place we began, no matter how far we think we’ve strayed. Home is where the heart is and my heart has always been in the mountains. I’m wonderfully happy now that my home and heart are both in the same place.

Rie McGaha is the author of several books ranging from erotic romance to paranormal, fantasy, historical, and and suspense. She also produces book trailers, works as a freelance editor, is a review editor, and promotes other authors on her blogs Sizzling Releases, An Author’s Tale, and Author Offerings. She is the mother of 12 and her 26th grandchild is due in October. She rescues abused animals, nurses them back to health and tries to find new homes for them. In her spare time she likes to garden and shoot weapons.

As Old As I Feel

In Wal-Mart the other day while checking out I glanced around at the other checkout lanes and noticed something peculiar. Apparently, the world has become middle aged. I never did like the term middle aged, it sounds akin to The Middle Ages, The Dark Ages, or The Dinosaur Age. I may be somewhere north of the middle age mark, but I am no dinosaur.

Who invents these terms anyway? I have never been consulted, nor asked if I approve of the terms relating to people my age. To my grandchildren I expect to be thought of as “old”, after all when I was their age I thought anyone over thirty was old. But for the rest of the world, I resent being thought of as an old person. I am perhaps well seasoned, experienced, knowledgeable, well practiced, qualified, capable, and competent, but I am not old!

If I happen to forget something, I have selective memory. If I don’t pay attention to what you are saying, I have selective hearing. If I can’t read anything without glasses, it’s because the print is much smaller than it used to be. If my bones creak when I get out of bed, or walk, or move at all, it’s because I played hard in my youth. It is important to pay attention to the potential of interacting harmfully with other medications thus they should levitra online order eradicate the problems as soon as possible, but if they do not explore the Traditional Chinese Medicine then they are ignoring a very likely chance. The time of ejaculation is not the same for every time for all men as some men feel ED only when they are making efforts for erection during intercourse but when they are sleeping, they get nighttime erection. generico levitra on line respitecaresa.org Humanity’s quest for a true aphrodisiac throughout history makes the search for the Holy Grail, El Dorado, and Free Energy look like child’s play in comparison. uk tadalafil http://respitecaresa.org/event/a-celebration-of-love-children-2/ Stress, anxiety, and depression usually aggravate abdominal pain and, vice versa, abdominal pain levitra vardenafil can create depression. If my waistline is a tad larger than it used to be, it’s only because I no longer feel it necessary to compete for the attention being svelte used to bring me. If dressing up for dinner means putting on my shoes and going to Denney’s, it’s only because I’m wise enough to know a penny saved is a penny earned. If I am in bed by nine o’clock it’s only because I realize the health benefits of a good night’s sleep.

There is a big difference between growing older and getting old. I for one choose to grow older gracefully, while fighting being old with every breath in my body. And as my younger brother told me once, “You’re still pretty for an old girl. You know you’re an old girl now, right?”

Rie McGaha is the author of several books ranging from erotic romance to paranormal, fantasy, historical, and and suspense. She also produces book trailers, works as a freelance editor, is a review editor, and promotes other authors on her blogs Sizzling Releases, An Author’s Tale, and Author Offerings. She is the mother of 12 and her 26th grandchild is due in October. She rescues abused animals, nurses them back to health and tries to find new homes for them. In her spare time she likes to garden and shoot weapons.