#6 In-Class Example Essay - Hair

#6 In-Class Example Essay

Hair

Hair: animal hair, people hair, fake fur, feathers.  It all is similar, yet it all is different.  Hair has many purposes.  Most hair covers bodies for a very practical purpose: protection from the elements.  It can keep one warm in winter, and protect from excessive rays of sun in summer.  Bird feathers have an additional purpose, that of being used to attract a prospective mate.  Whatever its use, whatever its type, hair is an ever-present part of our everyday lives.  In our family, three types of hair are especially apparent - indoor pet hair, outdoor horse hair, and, of course, people hair.

Being a family that loves animals, we have an overabundance of hairy critters occupying our home.  I love to have a cat sitting on my lap or on my belly as I lay in bed, purring away while I run my fingers through the soft fur.  And although the dogs don’t get bathed as often as they should, they keep reasonably clean by rolling in the snow, grass, or leaves, and I don’t mind washing the layer of dirt off that is left behind after a good scrub.  Our oldest cat, Shadow, is now 18, and his fur, like the rest of his body, has shown signs of wear and tear.  The thick, shiny, silver-lined gray hair has become dull and limp; the skin underneath flaky in spots, covering a sparse frame.  But we don’t tell him he’s changed; we don’t want to hurt his feelings.  So he still thinks he’s as beautiful as always, and beneath it all, he definitely is.  With 3 cats and 2 dogs, all with long fur, except one, our house is full of pet hair.  But I don’t mind.  Some seasons are worse than others; that’s when it seems you can clean corners every five minutes and it looks the same.  But thankfully, we live where we can at least let the dogs out for most of the day during shedding season, which is a help.  It’s funny, but our only short-hair animal, a cat named Smudge, is the worst culprit of all.  His shedding season seems to last from March until January.  (Yes, that means we have a total of one month when we can pet him without cat hair sticking to our hands, filling the air and our noses with cat fur.)  We must REALLY love animals to put up with that… and we do.

Outdoors, our horse population has shrunk from three to one, making it more manageable, but less fun.  Horses definitely do have a shedding season.  It starts early, before it actually warms up, and for some reason, seems to start on the face and move back and down from there.  Our present horse doesn’t have much white on his face, but our old horse, Danny Boy, had a very wide white blaze, a striking contrast to his chestnut body.  That blaze was very unusual.  The hair there would be several times as dense as anywhere else on his body.  You could actually feel the difference as you pet him.  And when springtime came, that blaze was the first place to shed out.  Petting his face, which he loved, sent horse hair flying everywhere.  A person had to be careful that it didn’t completely cover Danny’s eyes or lodge in his nose, not to mention what it did to the human involved.  And when the rest of a Danny Boy’s shedding body caught up to his face, the ground was so covered with  horse hair, it looked like he’d been ruptured, leaving his earthly garb behind.  It’s surprising, but horsehair has actually been quite useful through the years.  It’s been used for filling mattresses and as a binder in plaster in old houses.  In fact, a house I am renovating has horse-hair plaster, which is quite strong.  While tearing down an old wall, you could easily tell the difference between the part that had the horse hair and the part that was added later, which didn’t.  In fact, the wall needed replacing simply because the non-horsehair part didn’t hold up!  So horsehair might be a nuisance, but if times get desperate, we might have to start putting it to good use again.

Pet hair, horse hair, people hair.  What about that people hair?  When I bought that old house I’m renovating, I was told the plumbing had problems, which was quite true.  The previous owners were a large family with 3 teenage girls, and two younger girls, all with long, straight hair.  A big bottle of Draino made especially for hair helped with some of the clogged drains.  Others required more drastic measures.  When removing an old claw-foot tub during renovation, we discovered a wad of hair, much like a horse’s tail coming out of the initial drain pipe and going down the main tube.  It was long!  Now I wonder what the other drains would look like if I took them all apart…  In my own family, we aren’t blessed with long, thick hair for the most part, so I don’t have the same problems.  My only thick-haired daughter is now married and gone, taking with her the hair she used to leave behind as a token to remember her by.  But when I go to her house, I usually help clean the bathroom, with an abundance of black, curly hair, because unfortunately, she’s afraid of spiders and those clusters of hairs look too much like arachnids for her to deal with. 

And so, hair is a part of life, whether it’s in your own home, outside in the barn, in homes you visit, or on your own head.  Some people are possessed by their hair, continually occupied with keeping up the façade it helps create.  They are much like the birds who fluff and preen their feathers, trying to look their best to make the best catch.  Some prefer long hair, some short; some with thick hair have it thinned, some with thin hair use products to make it thick.  Some with curly hair use straighteners, while others with straight hair use curling irons to change their looks.  Some dark-haired beauties lighten their hair, while other blondes change their hair color completely.  I often wonder why more people don’t like their own hair, especially when others would give almost anything for the same look.  But, for better or worse, hair makes a statement.  It says something about the person sporting that mop atop their head.  And that, I think, is the answer to my own wonderings.  And now, I wonder, what does my own hair say about me?

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay – Rewritten

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay – Rewritten

Roads

Life is full of roads.  Some are actual, visible roads, like the road I drive on to go to town or to anywhere.  Others are inside and invisible, the choices made as life takes its own twists and turns.  Decisions made when cross-sections appear, sometimes out of nowhere, shape the course and direction of those roads.  And those are the ones that really matter.  In my own life, I can think of one major decision that changed my life forever, a choice I made 30 years ago, one I have never, ever regretted.  That choice was to finally give up, give in, and give my heart and life to Jesus Christ. 

I remember growing up, going to Catholic school, attending Catholic mass, because I had to.  Those were the rules.  If I didn’t go to mass, I’d go to hell.  That makes an easy decision, though I didn’t actually have a choice.  I even went to Catholic high school.  Mass was right there in the chapel, no excuses.  But my senior year I switched schools and went to a New York City public school – culture shock as to academic expectations (from high to none) and morals (from “be a good girl” to “if it feels good, do it”), not to mention the fact that in Catholic school, if you didn’t return your schoolbooks in primo condition, you didn’t go on to the next grade; while in public school, books were used as footballs or left at home, maybe forever.  That was the beginning of the end for me.  College just clinched the deal; and for years, though I believed in God, he was that “higher power” somewhere, whatever you wanted to call him – Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit, etc.  It was all the same to me.  He was up there; I was down here, almost “never the twain to meet.”

When I became a Christian (was “born again” in Christian-ese), strange things began to happen.  I began to have an insatiable appetite for Bible reading.  What had once been a dead book, propped up in a dusty corner of my bookshelf, became a life-giving, awe-inspiring love letter just to me.  Though I had gone to mass almost daily for the first 17 years of my life, and though I had attended Catholic school for 12 years, counting kindergarten, I knew very little about the Bible and I had no interest in learning more.  It wasn’t that important compared to the rules and regulations of the Catholic Church that I’d had to learn, and that was more than enough for me.  After I became a Christian, I became absolutely fascinated with the amazing stories of the Old Testament (many of which I would have left out had I been the one writing The Book.  I would have sugar-coated it to make everything more appealing to the general public, not to mention that I hate to make anyone look bad.)  But those parts gave me hope.  Those ancient warriors of the faith were ordinary, fallible human beings like me, not holier-than-thou superheroes as the Catholic Church portrays their saints.  And the story of Jesus himself is almost beautiful enough to make one cry.  I was a young mom with a two-year-old son at that point.  There was no way I’d give up my child for a sinner, no matter how hard he begged.  But God willingly gave up his son, his only, only son – for me.  And not only for me but for every other rotten human being ever born or ever to be born.  It was just mind-boggling.

Then there was how you “got saved” and what was expected afterwards.  That was an alien concept.  Those were strange words.  I was never drowning, or lost, or in danger of falling off a cliff.  I didn’t need to “be saved.”  Christians sure do have a strange vocabulary.  In Catholic school, we had a whole invisible rule book.  We had to go to Mass on Sunday (later Saturday evening became a suitable substitute.)  We couldn’t eat meat on Fridays (though later that was also changed.  I always wondered what happened to all those poor souls in hell or purgatory.  Were they immediately released or did they still have to take the punishment for their crimes?)  I remember the horror of my mother when she realized it was Friday and she had just served us delicious bacon.  Had it been open, she would have made a beeline for the confessional to ease her suffering conscience.  But when friends of mine became Christians, they didn’t have to do anything… weird.  They just had to accept the free gift of “salvation through Jesus Christ.”  Again, strange words – hadn’t a clue what they meant.  They also didn’t have to go to church at all.  There wasn’t even a hell consequence, yet they went every Sunday, twice a day in fact, and Wednesdays.  They were strange folk.  After I became a Christian, I’ll admit, I didn’t go to church either.  My husband was a hermit, and at that time in my life I followed in his footsteps.  But I read, no I devoured, my Bible for hours every day.  I wanted to learn everything there was to know about my new faith.  Later, much, much later, when my oldest son began looking toward college, we finally started going to church.  It wasn’t for the purest of reasons either.  I’d raised my kids with a strong faith, and he decided he wanted to go to a Christian college.  In filling out the applications, it asked questions like: how often do you attend church?  Every Sunday?  Sundays and Wednesdays?  Every time the church doors are open?  Oops… there was no place for “Never.”  They also wanted a reference from his pastor or youth group leader.  It was finally time.  We found a local church where different friends attended, and I was hooked.  I finally understood why those first friends went to church when they didn’t even have to.  Though I probably exceeded the Bible knowledge of most of the congregation by then (other than the pastor), there are some things that aren’t in the Good Book, or actually they are, but actions speak louder than words.  And I began to learn those things.  I’ve now been a Christian for 30 years, attending church for 15 of those years (though not all in the same church).  I now find myself going to church on Sundays, not for the short, mandatory ½ hour as the Catholic Church demanded which I reluctantly obeyed, but for 3 hours, willingly, under no obligation to attend.  Plus I’m part of a weeknight in-home Bible Study which will celebrate its 6^th year together in April.  I now consider my church my family, and I‘m glad God found a way to steer us to the right path.

During all those years while growing up, attending Catholic Church and school, I managed to effectively separate church and life.  It wasn’t that I was awful, just a bit schizophrenic.  I could easily compartmentalize my life into two sections: life and church.  They didn’t seem to interfere much with each other.  Those Catholic rules were more about church attendance, confession, and holy days.  Life didn’t happen much at those times.  But the Bible, that was another matter.  It said scary things like if one person lusts after another, it’s the same as committing adultery.  To be angry without just cause at another is like murder.  And God hates lies.  Plus there was the novel idea of being nice to those who hurt you, repaying evil with good.  These were everyday sorts of things, hard to separate from normal life.  It also doesn’t give many outs for marriage, just 2 that I know of: adultery by the other partner, and if an unbeliever wants to leave, let him go.  Every marriage has its struggles, and my husband and I married young.  I was only 19.  We’ve had our share of disagreements.  While most of our other, non-believing friends’ marriages bit the dust one by one, divorce was no longer an option and we learned to deal with our differences instead of looking for a way out.  Faith and life were no longer separate, but one and the same.

Making the decision to follow Christ changed the roadmap of my life in many ways.  I know that some people can point to the day, the place, and the time when they accepted Christ for who he is and for what he did for them.  I can’t.  I can give you a year, 1982, but only because my firstborn son was 2 at the time.  For me, it was a slow process.  God had to work on me slowly because he knows I can be stubborn.  But he was very patient, working in my life as I was willing and able to take it.  Eventually, instead of crying, “Uncle,” and giving up, I cried, “Father,” and ran into his huge, welcoming arms, like a little child running into the arms of the one who loves her best, who knows her best, and who wants only the best for her.  It was a decision that changed my life forever, and I hate to even imagine what I would be like had I chosen a different path.

Essay #5 - Example Essay

Essay #5 - Example Essay

Fathers can have a great influence on their children.  No father is perfect, and some are better than others.  I know I was exceptionally blessed to have a father like mine.  My dad came to this country alone at the age of 16 from Germany.  Already in this country were his aunt and uncle, and a brother.  Left behind were his own parents, another brother, and a sister.  This was shortly before Hitler closed the border to emigrating young men.  His last brother never made it to the US.  My dad brought with him strong morals, passed on to him by his parents and generations before them.  They were values of faith, integrity, and family.

My dad was Catholic and we lived only two blocks from the Catholic Church.  In our family, mass was an everyday affair.  I doubt I missed more than a few from the time I was brought home from the hospital until I finally entered college and schedules conflicted.  My dad was an active part of the church.  Even though he couldn’t go to mass with us during the week, he participated in every church activity he could.  He belonged to the Nocturnal Adoration Society, an organization that was dedicated to a once-a-month all-night vigil of adoration to Jesus.  Although he had to leave for work at 6am every morning, he would give up several precious hours of sleep in the middle of the night to go to church for his assigned time slot.  He was also part of the Counting Committee that met Monday evenings to count and record the weekly donations.  His fellow counters would joke with him that he wore suit pants with wide cuffs, even when they were out of style, just to slip some money into them when no one was looking.  He’d laugh, and everyone knew Honest John would never even consider such a suggestion.  When I was little, he’d often let me go with him, and I’d help open the envelopes.  I was fascinated with the machine that sorted and counted the change.  Since this was New York City, a place with many new arrivals from other countries, often foreign coins were kicked out of the machine, and if I was there I was the lucky recipient of that precious coin.  I still have every one of those coins along with the memories that come with them.  Priests and nuns were almost a part of the family, each knowing our family well, often invited to special family occasions, especially those that were church-related, such as first Communions and Confirmations, but also those memorable occasions like my parents’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary.  Dad took his faith seriously and made sure each of us did the same.  While I did not remain with his Catholic faith, I do hold on tightly to my own faith, which is also an integral part of my life, and which I am passing on to my children.

My father was also a man of intense integrity.  He did the right thing, no matter the consequences, and he expected others to do the same.  I can still remember him coming home from the grocery store and comparing his bill with the change received, then later going back to return the extra ten cents the cashier had accidentally given him.  His strong sense of right and wrong traveled with him into all parts of his life.  Principles were important.  He never had a credit card until my siblings purchased a Florida vacation for my parents.  Faced with the need for one in order to rent a car, he went to his bank and applied.  He was shocked and enraged when he was denied a credit card!  He had no credit history.  His house was paid off.  He had no loans.  He paid his bills on time.  His sense of right and wrong knew that was wrong, and he closed every account he had with that bank.  He had a gift for handling finances.  This gift, plus his exceptional memory for keeping track of accounts and his trustworthiness, served him well as treasurer for many organizations.  In fact, he was either treasurer or vice president for each of the dozen or so organizations of which he was a part.  He always felt that if you belonged to something, you should do your part to help out, and we were expected to do the same.  While now I don’t even bother to count my change, and I realize that unfortunately  not everyone shares his honesty and sense of service, these  are values that I try to pass on to my own children.  

Family was extremely important to my dad.  Although he left home at such a young age, he kept in close contact with those he left behind.  He used to write home regularly, sending a dollar each week of his hard-earned money along with the letter.  That doesn’t sound like much now, but wages back then were only $15 a week, so that was a lot.  After he married and his family grew to include children, he gave up his motorcycle and singles activities and dedicated himself to fatherhood.  I can hardly remember a Sunday, his only day off, when we didn’t do something together, even if it was only going for a long walk that included stops along the way to admire beautiful gardens, perhaps meandering to the little church where he and my mom were married, farther away than our own local church.  He often took us to the Little Park, a concrete-floored city park with swings, slides, see-saws, and monkey bars.  He would spend hours pushing the four of us kids (later five) as high as we desired.  I’ll never forget the Sunday, when he bundled us all together in the old ’53 Plymouth, never telling us kids where we were going.  You can’t imagine the whoops and hollers when we saw Coney Island Amusement Park in sight!  My dad was the only wage-earner, and it wasn’t a high-paying wage either, so I know it took a long time to scrimp and save for such an extravagant event, but it was a memory that is etched in my mind forever.  Even after we were all grown and gone, family was a top priority, and he never forgot a birthday or anniversary, or Christmas, not only for his own kids, but also for the growing number of grandkids, something I have to admit, I wish I was better at doing.  But the high priority on family has continued, though I also continued the tradition of moving away from home.  I realize that friends may come and go, but family is forever, for better or worse, so I try to emphasize the better.  My kids know how much I value family, both my own little family here in Maine, and my larger family, still mostly in NY, but now starting to extend to the far corners of the US.  Just this past Christmas, my youngest daughter gave me a bracelet, with a delicately branched tree encircled with an inscription saying, “Family is a link to our past and a bridge to our future.”  She knows.  I have done my job.

My dad wasn’t perfect.  No one is.  This hard-working, mild-mannered man became transformed into another creature when behind the wheel.  I remember him driving us to a wake – an all-day wake, where we had no definite arrival time, where the body definitely wasn’t going anywhere soon, and where we intended to stay all day.  We got stuck behind some poor tourists in New York City who were obviously intimidated by the traffic, ambiguous road signs, and one-way streets.  Instead of patiently allowing the unfortunate travelers to weave their way through an already difficult situation, he blasted on his car horn, trying to push them off the road so he could hurry on his way!  My kids will never forget that.  And, while I’ve never experienced road rage, I’m sorry to say that I have “inherited” some of that flaw, losing my temper when I shouldn’t, a fact of which I am not proud.  But on the whole, I think I had a great dad.  I learned a lot from him, a lot of things that have served me well in my life.  I’ve tried to do as he did, passing those values on to my own family, and I hope his tradition of faith, integrity, and family will continue for generations to come.

Example Essay Intro

 Example Essay Intro

Fathers can have a great influence on their children.  No father is perfect, and some are better than others.  I know I was exceptionally blessed to have a father like mine.  My dad came to this country alone at the age of 16 from Germany.  Already in this country were his aunt and uncle, and a brother.  Left behind were his own parents, another brother, and a sister.  This was shortly before Hitler closed the border to emigrating young men.  His last brother never made it to the US.  My dad brought with him strong morals, passed on to him by his parents and generations before them.  They were values of faith, integrity, and family.

GRAF #19 - Reaction Graf to Writing In-Class Essay

GRAF #19 - Reaction Graf to Writing In-Class Essay

Writing impromptu, with a time constraint, on a subject I didn’t choose was difficult.  I like time to think, to organize, to rewrite, to perfect, none of which was in abundant supply.  For myself, in the middle of my essay, I received a phone call telling of the unexpected death of a friend.  (I did write down the time and so kept to my one-hour limit) but the thought process was definitely broken.  Aside from that, my biggest problem was deciding the topic within the topic assigned, and then how to organize it into 3 parts, not including intro and outro.  If I had had more time, I might have chosen a different breakdown or even started over with a different topic.  The time factor kept me plodding through, hoping it would all make sense in the end.  Writing the outro was especially hurried because time was running out.  I would have liked to end less abruptly, but maybe it left the reader to continue the thought, and maybe that was a good thing.

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay

Essay #4 - In Class Contrast Essay

Roads

Life is full of roads.  Some are actual, visible roads, like the road I drive on to go to town or to anywhere.  Others are inside and invisible, choices made as life takes its own twists and turns – decisions made when cross-sections appear, sometimes out of nowhere.  In my own life, I can think of one major decision that changed my life forever.  A choice I made 30 years ago, one I have never, ever regretted.  That choice was to finally give up, give in, and give my heart and life to Jesus Christ.  I don’t want to go into all the details of that decision.  That in itself would make more than another essay.  But, looking back, I can see the changes it made in my life, and I can only imagine what my life would be like now had I decided differently.

The biggest difference that decision made is simply in my general outlook.  Before, I lived life for myself.  I was part of the hippie generation, which in many ways was a selfish generation.  Sure, I was raised with good, Catholic morals, but I had thrown the baby out with the wash water and was starting all over with nothing, re-inventing the wheel as I was deciding for myself what was right and wrong for me.  And I’ll admit, many of those decisions weren’t thought through, and I’ve had to pay the consequences for them.  Becoming a Christian gave me a new focus.  It wasn’t all about me.  It wasn’t all about now.  It was more than a “higher power.”  It was about a person, Jesus Christ, who loved me so much He took my punishment for all the things I ever did wrong or ever would do wrong.  Wow!  I love my kids now more than life itself.  Could I ever let one of them die for someone like me?  I don’t think so.  Yet God sent His son, his only, only son to do that.  That sort of love is more than unselfish, it’s beyond my comprehension.  And the Bible, instead of being a rulebook by some sadistic fun-robbing god, became an instruction manual written by the master mechanic who loves his creation and wants everything to run smoothly so that the vehicle He so lovingly created will just purr along in life, getting good mileage, without breakdowns, without running out of oil or gas, doing what it was meant to do in the best way possible for as long as possible.

That big turn in the road brought about smaller turns as I made new decisions with a different focus.  It’s hard to explain, but it’s something like looking at life through a filter, a Jesus filter.  Instead of focusing on me, myself, and I; instead of thinking of what I want and what’s best for me, I started to think of what Jesus wants, of what he thinks I should do.  For example, I’ve been married now for 38 years.  I don’t know of any of my non-Christian friends who were married when I became a Christian that are still married now.  Marriage can be hard work.  Often it seems easier to give up and start all over.  But that’s not God’s way, and if we’re willing, He helps mend fences, and strengthens the weak spots, and builds bridges.  The choices I now make, I try to make through that Jesus filter.  I’ll be the first admit, it doesn’t always work.  My selfishness gets in the way.  And that’s when the gas runs out, the oil starts to burn, and the clutch starts to go.  Oops…

The last change which is still evolving is my path to the future.  Instead of thinking about what I want to do from now until the day I die, I think about how He wants me to use my time.  The funny thing, is that He loves me so much, that while I’m trying to figure out what He wants me to do, He’s also giving me so many of the things I had wanted before.  One of those things is to finish my college education, which I gave up to get married.  I always used to say to my kids that I might go back to college if I ever decided what I wanted to be when I grew up.  After homeschooling my 4 kids, He gave me a strong desire to become a nurse, and He’s been opening up the doors, allowing me to walk through one step at a time.  I have absolutely no idea where this new road will lead, but I do know I’ll keep following Him wherever He leads.

And so, the road continues to weave its way through my life.  One major decision has led to new decisions, new pathways and byways, and it continues on to the horizon, like the end of the rainbow that is never seen.  Whatever happens, wherever that road leads, I know that He’s in charge.  Though things don’t always go the way I want them to, I trust that He knows what’s best.  And so, when the road ahead looks rocky, and I wonder if the ground is full of sinkholes, I remember what  I know – God is good, all the time, no matter what. 

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

"About Alzheimer's Disease: Alzheimer's Basics." National Institute on Aging. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/topics/alzheimers-basics>.

A very good site to gain a rudimentary knowledge of Alzheimer’s. It is concise, yet well-written and well-organized, making it easy to understand, and easy to gain the background needed for further research. At the same time, it is complete enough for the layman who doesn’t want to get into the details, but wants acquire a basic understanding of the subject.

"Helpful Links." Reducing Risk Factors for Alzheimer's and Promoting Successful Aging. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://alzprevention.org/>.

An excellent starting off place for Alzheimer’s Disease research. With a simple click of the mouse this site takes the researcher to almost anything related to this topic. I haven’t yet explored all of its possibilities, and I’m the type to be skeptical about the completeness of any one website, but for the reader looking for a one-size-fits all on Alzheimer’s, this is a good choice with which to begin.

"Memory Loss Myths & Facts | Alzheimer's Association." Alzheimer's Association. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_myths_about_alzheimers.asp>.

An interesting place to discount some of the things I had taken for gospel truth related to Alzheimer’s, and I am very happy to be able to use aluminum pots again. I won’t tell all, but the reader will probably discover he or she has also been duped.

CONTRAST ESSAY

CONTRAST ESSAY

Having grown up in New York City, then eventually moving to Maine, I have the definite advantage of being comfortable in two very different worlds.  Since my family still resides in or around the Big Apple, I am able to go there with my kids to enjoy getting together with aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as taking time to tour the sights.  Through the years, we’ve gone to so many places, my sister jokes that after she retires, I’ll have to come down to show her around!  Truth be said, if you live there, it’s just a normal place, and the sights are for tourists.  In fact, I never even went to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building until my best friend was moving to Delaware when we were both 14.  We realized then that all non-New Yorkers would expect her to have seen those 2 icons so we rushed to tour both of them in one day just before she left.  Even after moving to Maine, whenever we went down, we would spend our time visiting with family.  It was only upon meeting someone here in Maine who enjoyed going to NYC on vacations that I even contemplated the possibility of sight-seeing while we were there.  To me, New York City is first and foremost, my original home, just as now Maine is my beloved home, both very different, but both places in which I am quite comfortable.  Going back and forth between Maine and New York, it’s easy to slip in and out between the 2 worlds.  Even my New Yawk accent reappears when I’m around my relatives again.  When I’m here, NYC is a distant, ephemeral dream.  When I’m there, Maine is a far-off fairy tale.  Each region has its advantages and disadvantages.  Though I’m at ease in both places, living in NYC is very different from living in Maine in many ways.  Just three of the obvious differences are in the areas of entertainment, stores, and travel.  

NYC is a world of glitter, excitement, and glamour.  At least that’s the way it’s portrayed in the movies.  Manhattan is what the world thinks of when it envisions the Big Apple.  That’s the area with Broadway plays, museums, Central Park, 5^th Avenue, and innumerable shopping opportunities.  Actually, it’s only one of 5 boroughs, each of which contains mostly residential districts with nondescript stores catering to the individual neighborhoods.  And even half of Manhattan Island is residential, leaving a very small part of NYC portraying the entire city.  But entertainment opportunities in The City can be amazing.  There are interesting educational opportunities ranging from museums to zoos, from concerts to magnificent churches, from botanical gardens to historical sites.  Yet most of these opportunities come at a price, and for the most part it is not cheap.  But if you know the system, there are ways around some of those exorbitant entrance fees.  Several museums have pricey “suggested donations” listed.  Those are truly only suggested, and they will let you in for whatever you can afford.  Others have specific days and times, usually only for a few hours, sometimes for a particular off-day, when you can come for free.  In the summer, many parks host free public performances, ranging from the Philharmonic Orchestra to Beatlemania, to Jazz and more. However, in each of the aforementioned places, you will have to fight the crowds, from buying your subway pass to standing in line to pay entrance fees, to finding a place on the park grass big enough to sit on and close enough to see whatever is being performed.  If you dare to attempt the 4^th of July fireworks in Manhattan, be prepared to stand for many hours literally packed into a solid mass of humanity, unable to take a bathroom break until it’s all over. 

On the other hand, entertainment in Maine is much more subtle, with nature being the most obvious draw.  Clean air, star-filled nights, brilliant white snow, crystal clear lakes, silence so deep it almost hurts to listen – these are the things that make Maine special.  And it comes almost without price.  Hiking can be done nearly anywhere, though designated trails make it easier to reach some of the more well-liked places.  Indeed, even the most popular destinations are relatively deserted with a certain camaraderie obvious among strangers.  Community is very important in Maine, creating unusual entertainment opportunities, such as the Blueberry Festival, Lobster Festival, Pumpkin Harvest Festival, even a Chocolate Festival, each town seeking to find its own niche in unique celebrations.  Some towns, like my own, host more than one celebrations – for us it is the Whoopie Pie Festival and the Annual Homecoming for the local high school.  These festivities bring together most of the townsfolk, providing an opportunity for neighbors to catch up on family news, and new friends to meet.  Other well-attended community events are church suppers and pancake breakfasts, usually hosted as fundraisers by local volunteer organizations or to raise money for an unfortunate family who lost their home in a fire or to help with medical bills.  Pot lucks are another opportunity to get to know the other locals and newcomers usually within one’s own church family, and I will personally vouch for the talent of our local women who cook for these delicious feasts.

Stores are also very different within the 2 localities.  The number of stores in the Big Apple is mind-boggling, with stores almost continuous from one neighborhood to the next.  A person can seemingly buy anything they want in NYC and usually within walking distance (except, of course, some of the basic Maine essentials such as firearms and ammunition, which are illegal there.)  Maine, on the other hand, has very few stores in comparison, and sometimes one has to travel quite a distance to purchase some of the basic clothing necessities, though guns and ammunition are often available locally.  Whereas local stores in NY neighborhoods are small and crowded, with barely enough room for two shoppers to pass without knocking each other over, stores in Maine tend to be large with wide aisles.  Since New York City is home to immigrants from many countries, grocery stores reflect those regional tastes.  The variety of food items to purchase in New York is enormous, though ethnic tastes are not necessarily enjoyed by all, leaving normal purchase choices at a more reasonable level.  As for price, surprisingly, Maine’s staple items that can be stored, such as canned and dried foods, are significantly cheaper here, though for fresh produce, NYC can’t be beat, both for cost and for unsurpassed quality, and I usually stock up when I’m down there.  Another aspect of shopping which shows significant differences is the attitude toward shoppers in the two places.  In Maine, store personnel are friendly and helpful, eager to please and expecting their customers to be basically honest.  However, in the Big Apple, personnel and security carefully watch each shopper, waiting and expecting to see someone try to slip an item into a bag or under a coat.  Even libraries exhibit this paranoia, with drop boxes locked after hours to prevent theft.  This difference alone can make me yearn for my adopted home when I’m there.

Travel is a final obvious area of dissimilarity between metropolitan New York and rural Maine.  Public transportation is the norm in NYC, partly because it is so easily available, and  partly because parking is not.  Public transportation consists of subway or bus or a combination of the two.  Subways are generally loud and often unbelievably crowded during rush hour, when there’s no chance of falling down because of the crush of body against body in the cars.  And subway stations can be really scary places during late off-hours when intimidating characters can be seen leering in your direction and no reinforcements are in sight.  Buses, on the other hand, are unbearably slow, competing with cars on the crowded streets and stopping at almost every street corner to pick up and drop off travelers.  I’m pretty sure one could run faster than a bus travels on an average day, though that would be hard if carrying purchases.  Many New Yorkers do not even own a car, something almost unheard of here in Maine, but there it makes sense.  Owning a car in NYC means trying to find a parking space every time you go somewhere or return home.  Unless you own or rent a garage, parking your car after a hard day’s work could mean driving around and around narrow streets, often parking many blocks from home, especially during alternate-side-of-the-street parking days (which gives the city an opportunity to sweep the dirty streets every week.)  And a driver had better be good at parallel parking – often only a few inches is all the space allotted between cars in order to fit in.  It also means your car could be broken into or stolen, a not uncommon occurrence, especially in some neighborhoods.  If you want to travel to Manhattan, parking there is almost unheard of, so most natives take the subway anyway.  Then there’s rush hour.  Here where I live, rush hour on my road is passing 3 cars on my 5-mile way to town.  There it could take 3 hours just to go that same 5 miles, with stop and go traffic every inch of the way.  In Maine, cars are a necessity, and usually more than one per household.  There is no public transportation, so a vehicle is required to go anywhere, whether to work, stores, church, or just to visit friends.  But at least the roads here are relatively empty and the views while driving are beautiful.  As for parking, most Mainers never even have to parallel park (and most can’t) or look for a parking space when they leave their vehicles.  There’s always plenty to choose from – a far cry from my native New York City.

New York City and rural Maine are very different places but both places I have called home.  Traveling between the two places is as close as mere mortals can come to traveling in two different worlds without ever leaving the boundaries of one’s own country, and I am blessed to have the advantage of being able to slip between these two worlds, almost unnoticed, enjoying the benefits  that each has to offer.  One has the advantages of many big cities but to an exceptional degree; the other is the place I have voluntarily chosen to call home.  Though I enjoy going to the city, both to see the sights (I’ve not yet seen them all) and to see my family, I’m always glad to come home again to Maine, to the peace and quiet and friendliness that a big city cannot provide, no matter how hard it tries.  As the saying goes, Maine – the way life should be, and I personally agree.

GRAF #18 - Isearch Progress

GRAF #18 - Isearch Progress

My Isearch topic is Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and my greatest difficulty is time.  I am determined to be the best student I can be, but days are still limited to 7 24-hour periods per week, and things like sleeping and eating and other necessities and obligations require time, not to mention the fact that my other teachers also expect me to devote most of my time to their subjects as well.  (Let’s see, is that possible?  Can anyone do the math?)  My next difficulty is my dial-up computer connection, which is almost unbearably slow and ties up my phone line.  It’s easy to suggest I go somewhere else to use their high speed connection, but usually my available time is when nothing is open.  I tried following my teacher’s directions for copying the information into my computer in order to look at it when off-line, but either my program is different (Windows7) or I’m doing it wrong, since it didn’t work.  Frustrating, since that took hours to do, and I thought it was working and I was making progress.  Now I have to go back and try to redo it all.  I’m thankful we’ll be having another week’s break before the first draft is due (April 20^th, not Nov. 18^th as it is written in week 8’s assignments.)  Though I had wanted to use that week to catch up on other things I’ve been putting off while concentrating on schoolwork, I’ll probably have to use it to get my first draft ready.  Other than those 2 obvious and unavoidable difficulties, things are going as expected: there is much information available; there are suggestions presented to hopefully avoid or delay the onset of AD, but there are no guarantees.  I still have much to learn, and much to assemble into an orderly Isearch report. 

Graf 2 of Contrast Essay

Graf 2 of Contrast Essay

NYC is a world of glitter, excitement, and glamour.  At least that’s the way it’s portrayed in the movies.  Manhattan is what the world thinks of when it envisions the Big Apple.  That’s the area with Broadway plays, museums, Central Park, 5^th Avenue, and innumerable shopping opportunities.  Actually, it’s only one of 5 boroughs, each of which contains mostly residential districts with nondescript stores catering to the individual neighborhoods.  And even half of Manhattan Island is residential, leaving a very small part of NYC portraying the entire city.  But entertainment opportunities in The City can be amazing.  There are interesting educational opportunities ranging from museums to zoos, from concerts to magnificent churches, from botanical gardens to historical sites.  Yet most of these opportunities come at a price, and for the most part it is not cheap.  But if you know the system, there are ways around some of those exorbitant entrance fees.  Several museums have pricey “suggested donations” listed.  Those are truly only suggested, and they will let you in for whatever you can afford.  Others have specific days and times, usually only for a few hours, sometimes for a particular off-day, when you can come for free.  In the summer, many parks host free public performances, ranging from the Philharmonic Orchestra to Beatlemania, to Jazz and more. However, in each of the aforementioned places, you will have to fight the crowds, from buying your subway pass to standing in line to pay entrance fees, to finding a place on the park grass big enough to sit on and close enough to see whatever is being performed.  If you dare to attempt the 4^th of July fireworks in Manhattan, be prepared to stand for many hours literally packed into a solid mass of humanity, unable to take a bathroom break until it’s all over.  On the other hand, entertainment in Maine is much more subtle, with nature being the most obvious draw.  Clean air, star-filled nights, brilliant white snow, crystal clear lakes, silence so deep it almost hurts to listen – these are the things that make Maine special.  And it comes almost without price.  Hiking can be done nearly anywhere, though designated trails make it easier to reach some of the more well-liked places.  Indeed, even the most popular destinations are relatively deserted with a certain camaraderie obvious among strangers.  Community is very important in Maine, creating unusual entertainment opportunities, such as the Blueberry Festival, Lobster Festival, Pumpkin Harvest Festival, even a Chocolate Festival, each town seeking to find its own niche in unique celebrations.  Some towns, like my own, host 2 celebrations, for us it is the Whoopie Pie Festival and the Annual Homecoming for the local high school.   These festivities bring together most of the townsfolk, providing an opportunity for neighbors to catch up on family news, and new friends to meet.  Other well-attended community events are church suppers and pancake breakfasts, usually hosted as fundraisers by local volunteer organizations or to raise money for an unfortunate family who lost their home in a fire or to help with medical bills.  Pot lucks are another opportunity to get to know the other locals and newcomers usually within one’s own church family, and I will personally vouch for the talent of our local women who cook for these delicious feasts.

REWRITE: Essay #2 - Classification Essay

REWRITE: Essay #2 - Classification Essay

Cats.  Some people love them.  Some people hate them.  It’s hard to find someone indifferent to them.  An interesting thing I’ve noticed about cats is that they seem to know who likes them and who doesn’t.  However, for some reason I don’t quite understand, if a cat chooses to stay around a group of people, it always seems to pick the cat-hater’s lap to try to sit on.  While the cat-lovers in the room are acting like fools, trying to get the independent feline’s attention, tempting it with anything from cooing noises to choice delicacies from their own plates, the free-spirited cat will nonchalantly strut right past them to the only person who is appalled that a cat is even sharing the same room with him and lightly float right onto the cat-hater’s lap.  It’s strange, but I’ve seen it happen too often to call it coincidence.  I have to admit, I don’t understand those cat-haters either, not because I haven’t met ornery cats, but because, though cats have certain similarities, they are each so different.  It’s like saying I don’t like flowers because they all stink, remembering the day I happened to get stuck in a patch of skunk cabbage.  Just as flowers come in different varieties, so do cats – some good natured, some aloof, and some regal – but underneath, they all possess a certain something that tugs on every cat-lover’s heart and makes each one individually special.

Shadow is our oldest cat.  He’s a solid, silvery gray with long fur.  He was born on a dairy farm, one among several litters produced that fall, and my then 10-year-old daughter picked him out soon after he was born.  We went to visit him every week until he was old enough to come home with us.  Shadow’s 18 years old now, (in other words, REALLY OLD) and unsteady on his feet.  He’s lost some teeth, so he has the special privilege of eating canned cat food, and he sleeps most of the time, preferably on someone’s lap, where, given the choice, he would spend most of the day contentedly purring away.  When he was younger, he loved being outdoors.  He never was one to stray far, preferring to sleep curled up underneath a nearby tree; but rain, snow, sleet, or hail, he was bound to spend as much time as possible outside.  We’d joke that he had a poor memory, since even if it was pouring, he’d go outside, get soaked, then come back in, look for a lap to dry out on, and then head back out, perhaps hoping the weather had cleared.  This cycle would repeat itself over and over again until the rain stopped and he could stay outside again.  We sometimes call him Uncle Shadow, because, unlike our other cats, he’s always welcomed new kittens into our home, licking them, curling up with them, making them feel welcome, being an adopted uncle to them.  He’s been a good cat, and we’re really going to miss him when he’s gone.

Orion is our next oldest cat.  He’s 12, though he doesn’t look or act his age.  He’s black with white belly, chin, and paws.  He was named Orion because he has Orion’s belt around his waist, and he obviously was one of the Men in Black.  He’s also long- fur, like Shadow, but with a very different personality.  Orion’s always been more of an aloof individual, keeping to himself, periodically gracing his owners with a display of affection or allowing them the rare privilege of a fleeting pet.  That was until he almost lost his own life.  He came home one day with a piece of fur and skin missing from his back just at the base of his tail, the result of some tangle with one of the wild beasts of the woods.  It was about the size of a half dollar, but he kept licking his wound until the damage  expanded all the way around the base of his tail and down the back of both of his legs.  During the course of 3 years, I tried every imaginable remedy.  Elizabethan collars didn’t work at all.  He managed to use them to gouge deeper into his damaged flesh.  Nasty-tasting sprays only made him lick his wound more fiercely to get it off.  We eventually rigged up a contraption which was a sort of giant e-collar made of soft leather attached to a normal plastic e-collar to keep it from folding in around his face.  The oversized extension kept him from reaching his wound, yet collapsed enough so he could still eat and drink.  I bandaged his wounds, which were eventually confined to both legs, with thick layers of gauze and tape, so it looked like his legs were in casts.  During all this time, this aloof, unaffectionate cat had to put up with daily nursing treatments, and surprisingly he became a real Lover Boy.  I guess underneath it all, he realized I was torturing him for his own good. The change was permanent, and he now loves to sleep on my belly at night.  When I awaken, he demands loudly that I stop being so lazy and uncooperative and start giving him some good scrubs, such as he deserves.

Besides Shadow and Orion, a pretty gray and gold money cat named Sunny lives with us.  Though she’s actually 5 years old, being typically female, she tries to pretend she’s only 3, and we let her get away with it.  She has a white belly, dainty white feet, and a pretty white stripe on her face.  She also has long fur.  She is the feline queen of the family, and she knows it.  She struts around with grace and poise, just like the royalty she is.  She loves her human family, as a proper queen should love her royal subjects, but she puts all other animals into their places, especially the other cats.  Should one dare to trespass into her personal royal space, she is quick to pounce on the unsuspecting culprit.  Such an intrusion is not to be tolerated.  But to her people, she is loving and kind, though she still maintains a certain regal manner, perhaps to ensure they never fail to treat her as Her Royal Majesty deserves.  Though we allow her the illusion of grandeur, we aren’t fooled.  We see through her pompous charade to the essence of her being.  Though regal on the outside, she is soft and cuddly on the inside, wanting her share of pets, just like the others.  And so we humor her, permitting her to maintain her dignity, while giving her the love she so desperately desires.

Three cats – Shadow, Orion, and Sunny –such different personalities, it’s hard to believe they all belong to the same species.  Yet each has become a special part of our family.  I know there will always be people who don’t like cats.  I have to admit, I was that way once.  I was excusably ignorant since I had never been introduced to a human’s feline friend before.  Where I grew up, the only cats I came into contact with were dirty alley cats that haunted the city streets, lurking around in the dark, darting across the roads, coming out of nowhere,   and disappearing into mysterious corners.  It was only after moving to the country, when I was forced to get a kitten of my own in order to defend house and home from invasion by an army of militant country mice that I learned the true joys of feline fellowship and have never turned back since.  Right now, I can hardly imagine life without them.  And, for those who are determined to keep their stubborn opinion about cats, they have no idea what they are missing.

Contrast Essay Intros

 Two Contrast Intros

Contrast Essay Intro 1

Having grown up in New York City, then eventually moving to Maine, I have the definite advantage of being comfortable in two very different worlds.  Since my family still resides in or around the Big Apple, I am able to go there with my kids to enjoy getting together with aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as taking time to tour the sights.  Through the years, we’ve gone to so many places, my sister jokes that after she retires, I’ll have to come down to show her around!  Truth be said, if you live there, it’s just a normal place, and the sights are for tourists.  In fact, I never even went to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building until my best friend was moving to Delaware when we were both 14.  We realized then that all out-of-staters would expect her to have seen those 2 icons so we rushed to tour both of them in one day just before she left.  Even after moving to Maine, whenever we went down, we would spend our time visiting with family.  It was only upon meeting someone here in Maine who enjoyed going to NYC on vacations that I even contemplated the possibility of sight-seeing while we were there.  To me, New York City is first and foremost, my original home, just as now Maine is my beloved home, both very different, but both places in which I am quite comfortable.  Going back and forth between Maine and New York, it’s easy to slip in and out between the 2 worlds.  Even my New Yawk accent reappears when I’m around my relatives again.  When I’m here, NYC is a distant, ephemeral dream.  When I’m there, Maine is a far-off fairy tale.  Each region has its advantages and disadvantages.  Though I’m at ease in both places, living in NYC is very different from living in Maine in many ways.  Just three of the obvious differences are in the areas of entertainment, stores, and travel.

Contrast Essay Intro 2

Living in two worlds – what does that mean?  Is it possible?  Science fiction could give a definition which would be out of the ordinary, something never to be experienced by most people.  But is it possible for us commoners?  Being blessed by living in a country of great diversity, with the chance to experience many cultural differences if only among the different regions of the US, we can experience something at least similar to living in two worlds.  For myself, having grown up in New York City and then moving to Maine, I have had the unique opportunity of living for many years in two very different worlds.  And, since most of my family still lives there, I still have the advantage of being able to slip between these two worlds, almost unnoticed, enjoying the advantages that each has to offer.  New York City and rural Maine – very different places, but both places I have called home.  Each region has its advantages and disadvantages.  Though I’m at ease in both places, living in NYC is very different from living in Maine in many ways.  Just three of the obvious differences are in the areas of entertainment, stores, and travel.

Essay #2 - Classification Essay

Classification Essay

Cats.  Some people love them.  Some people hate them.  It’s hard to find someone indifferent to them.  An interesting thing I’ve noticed about cats is that they seem to know who likes them and who doesn’t.  However for some reason, if a cat chooses to stay around a group of people, it always seems to pick the cat-hater’s lap to try to sit on.  While the cat-lovers in the room are acting like fools, trying to get the independent feline’s attention, tempting it with anything from cooing noises to choice delicacies from their own plates, the free-spirited cat will nonchalantly strut right past them to the only person who is appalled that a cat is even sharing the same room with him and lightly float right onto the cat-hater’s lap.  It’s strange, but I’ve seen it happen too often to call it coincidence.  I have to admit, I don’t understand those cat-haters, not because I haven’t met ornery cats, but because, though cats have certain similarities, they are each so different.  It’s like saying I don’t like flowers because they all stink, remembering the day I happened to get stuck in a patch of skunk cabbage.  I also have to admit, that I didn’t always like cats either. I was excusably ignorant since I had never been introduced to a human’s feline friend.  Where I grew up, the only cats I came into contact with were dirty alley cats that haunted the city streets, lurking around in the dark, darting across the roads, coming out of nowhere,   and disappearing into mysterious corners.  It was only after moving to the country, when I was forced to get a kitten of my own in order to defend home and possessions from an invasion by an army of militant country mice that I learned the true joys of feline fellowship and have never turned back since.  Many cats have entered our home and passed on to the afterlife in the long years since then, each unique and special in its own way, just like the three that live with us now.

Shadow is our oldest cat. He’s a solid, silvery gray with long fur.  He was born on a dairy farm, one among several litters produced that fall, and my then 10-year-old daughter picked him out soon after he was born.  We went to visit him every week until he was old enough to come home with us.  Shadow’s 18 years old now, (in other words, REALLY OLD) and unsteady on his feet.  He’s lost some teeth, so he has the special privilege of eating canned cat food, and he sleeps most of the time, preferably on someone’s lap, where, given the choice, he would spend most of the day contentedly purring away.  When he was younger, he loved being outdoors.  He never was one to stray far, preferring to sleep curled up underneath a nearby tree; but rain, snow, sleet, or hail, he was bound to spend as much time as possible outside.  We’d joke that he had a poor memory, since even if it was pouring, he’d go outside, get soaked, then come back in, look for a lap to dry out on, and then head back out, perhaps hoping the weather had cleared.  This cycle would repeat itself over and over again until the rain stopped and he could stay outside again.  We sometimes call him Uncle Shadow, because, unlike our other cats, he’s always welcomed new kittens into our home, licking them, curling up with them, making them feel welcome, being an adopted uncle to them.  He’s been a good cat, and we’re really going to miss him when he’s gone.

Orion is our next oldest cat.  He’s 12, though he doesn’t look or act his age.  He’s black with white belly, chin, and paws.  He was named Orion because he has Orion’s belt around his waist, and he obviously was one of the Men in Black.  He’s also long- fur, like Shadow, but with a very different personality.  Orion’s always been more of an aloof individual, keeping to himself, periodically gracing his owners with a display of affection or allowing them the rare privilege of a fleeting pet.  That was until he almost lost his own life.  He came home one day with a piece of fur and skin missing from his back just at the base of his tail, the result of some tangle with one of the wild beasts of the woods.  It was about the size of a half dollar, but he kept licking his wound until the damage  expanded all the way around the base of his tail and down the back of both of his legs.  During the course of 3 years, I tried every imaginable remedy.  Elizabethan collars didn’t work at all.  He managed to use them to gouge deeper into his damaged flesh.  Nasty-tasting sprays only made him lick his wound more fiercely to get it off.  We eventually rigged up a contraption which was a sort of giant e-collar made of soft leather attached to a normal plastic e-collar to keep it from folding in around his face.  The oversized extension kept him from reaching his wound, yet collapsed enough so he could still eat and drink.  I bandaged his wounds, which were eventually confined to both legs, with thick layers of gauze and tape, so it looked like his legs were in casts.  During all this time, this aloof, unaffectionate cat had to put up with daily nursing treatments, and surprisingly he became a real Lover Boy.  I guess underneath it all, he realized I was torturing him for his own good. The change was permanent, and he now loves to sleep on my belly at night.  When I awaken, he demands loudly that I stop being so lazy and uncooperative and start giving him some good scrubs, such as he deserves.

Besides Shadow and Orion, a pretty gray and gold money cat named Sunny lives with us.  Though she’s actually 5 years old, being typically female, she tries to pretend she’s only 3, and we let her get away with it.  She has a white belly, dainty white feet, and a pretty white stripe on her face.  She also has long fur.  She is the feline queen of the family, and she knows it.  She struts around with grace and poise, just like the royalty she is.  She loves her human family, as a proper queen should love her royal subjects, but she puts all other animals into their places, especially the other cats.  Should one dare to trespass into her personal royal space, she is quick to pounce on the unsuspecting culprit.  Such an intrusion is not to be tolerated.  But to her people, she is loving and kind, though she still maintains a certain regal manner, perhaps to ensure they never fail to treat her as Her Royal Majesty deserves.  Though we allow her the illusion of grandeur, we aren’t fooled.  We see through her pompous charade to the essence of her being.  Though regal on the outside, she is soft and cuddly on the inside, wanting her share of pets, just like the others.  And so we humor her, permitting her to maintain her dignity, while giving her the love she so desperately desires.

Three cats – Shadow, Orion, and Sunny –such different personalities, but each such a special part of our family.  I know there will always be people who don’t like cats.  I was that way once.  But that was before I got to know them, and right now, I can hardly imagine life without them.  And, for those who are determined to keep their stubborn opinion about cats, they have no idea what they are missing.