I’m Baaaaacckkk!

Wow.This break was way longer than I had intended to take. The longer I went without writing the longer I was scared to go back. It was sort of like this with the emails. I convinced myself that maybe it was better to just stop writing all together and everyone would forget I even started the blog, than to write and have everyone notice just how long I took to get back to it.

I feel like, lately, I have been bombarded with hard things and sadness. Not in my own life necessarily but all around me. Sometimes I wonder, briefly: Am I the only one who ever feels this way? But then, I have learned that this cannot be true. I can never be the only one who feels a certain way. I find comfort in that truth. It does seem that every time I turn around something else is falling apart and it is all just too sad, or too much. Whether it is death, marriages, friendships, etc. I feel like every week I begin, bracing myself for what is coming next. I even wondered if I should toughen up. I have wondered: Am I too sensitive? I am not convinced that this is the case or what needs to change. When I first started SOS I had a REALLY hard time dealing with the sadness. Hearing people’s struggles and pain everyday can be overwhelming. For whatever reason I thought of Mother Teresa a lot during that time. I wondered how she coped. How was she not completely overcome with sadness for what she saw on a daily basis? I finally went out and picked up a book on MT, “Where There is Love, There is God”. It was the beginning of my love and obsession with Mother T. The book is still one of my favorites on her. I think of it as the book that saved me. I read it in hopes that I would find what made her go on, in faith. What gave her the ability to go on without being overwhelmed with grief and heartbreak?.  When she spoke about the things, similar to what I was seeing or hearing that caused sadness, she always spoke of it as a gift. Everything was a gift or an opportunity. Without these gifts, we as humans wouldn’t be able to love the way God intended. Pretty much, It wasn’t meant to be easy. We aren’t here to live a life without pain. So what is the purpose of pain and sadness? There has to be a reason that it is here. Reading MT, in her own words and writings, made me realize that the sadness, the pain has its purpose. It is an opportunity, an invitation to choose love. This doesn’t mean it is easy. There is a phrase that seems to popular right now “Love Wins”. I see it often on people’s Facebook or on Etsy posters. It seems to be quite the buzz phrase.  When I see someone write on their Facebook post “LOVE WINS” I picture people dancing in heart shaped rain, in a world where everyone loves everyone no matter what. Where feelings aren’t hurt and life is EASY. I picture something like this:

But the reality is, this phrase is deceiving. I have thought a lot about what that means, and the truth is, in fact, it couldn’t be further from easy. For love to “win” means we have to choose love, and not when it is easy to do. In fact, “LOVE WINS” means you have to choose to LOVE when it’s the last freakin thing you want to do. Even just now reading back that last part I wrote doesn’t do justice to how HARD I think love “winning” is. It still sounds too easy. There is something about the word LOVE that makes us all think “AWWW that is so cute (aka: easy)” It’s not. Let’s take an example. Say you were to find out that your dear friend had betrayed everyone close to them. They had lied to you, all of your friends, and most importantly to their spouse and children. They had done this for a looong time. They  made really bad choices and now everything that was good, or sort of good seemed to be ruined. You saw their children in pain, their spouse devastated, and you yourself feeling like you didn’t even know who they were anymore. Everything you thought they were had been not true. This is where Love can win. When we can choose LOVE when it is the last option we want to choose. Sometimes love winning is just saying, “I love you still” because that is all that we have to offer and we literally cannot muster up anything but those words to say. When you have been hurt, furious, wronged, betrayed, or sad is when it matters whether you choose to LOVE or not. Because where there is love, there is GOD. And with the grace of God you are always, winning.  This does not mean that we have to say that the choices were good or ok with us. It does not mean that we are never angry, or hurt, or sad. It does mean though that with all those things present, love will be the one that wins. Although I would like to think that love winning meant I could live in a world of heart shaped rain, it does not. And if we believe that loving is only easy it won’t win. It is the furthest thing from easy that I have ever done. We aren’t here to live easy lives, pain and sadness, and the hard parts are opportunities for us to choose to love. So let “Love Win” but don’t ever think that it will be easy, it was never meant to be easy. 

I will leave you with a quote by Theodore Roosevelt.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life….”

XOXO

Allison

 

PS Don’t envy the easy things, anyone can do easy. Envy the things that are hard as sh*t. 🙂

All I want for Christmas..

A single mother of 4 diagnosed with Cancer, she works 2 or 3 jobs at a time. She has twin 4 year old boys as well as 2 older sons age 8 and 10 She no longer receives financial help from the father. She struggles with her health and her bills and wasn’t going to celebrate Christmas this year. The children are only asking for a pair of shoes, nothing else.

A single father who has 2 sons, the mother left and they have no idea where she is. The boys are 7 and 11. His sons are good kids who work hard in school, one has even worked hard enough to receive a full scholarship to a private school here in town. He works hard at 2 jobs but there is rarely anything left over. He was not planning to celebrate the Holidays this year.

A single guardian of a 3 year old girl. The 3 year old is the daughter of a relative. The woman took her in as her own when no one else wanted her, to keep her from the foster system and out of her drug abusing biological mothers home. She was severely neglected for the first part of her life. Her guardian works hard, but was struggling to find a way to celebrate the holidays. Their christmas “wish list” consists of warm pajamas, fire wood, socks and underwear.

I could keep going, I have several more. These are the families, the stories, that have captured my heart over the past few weeks. They are the families that my Non-Profit, SOS,  have “Adopted”. They are the reason I had no time to post my Monday “Gratitude” post this week {SO SORRY}. Its true, I am obsessed. Ask my husband or anyone who sees me regularly. I AM COMPLETELY OBSESSED. When we started this program we committed to taking 5 families. We are at nearly 20 families now. TWENTY. I still cannot believe it. I am amazed by my team {Fabi, Amanda and Vanessa you guys are the best} and how much we have taken on in such a short time. The way each one of you follow your heart makes me just ecstatic. To watch these women sacrificing time they don’t have and loving these families, most that we have never met, is the kind of thing that can catch ones soul. I cannot eat or sleep without these families in my head and in my heart. It might be awhile till I am back writing. But just know that I am working hard and loving even harder.

The support and outreach from our community has been incredible.We have raised over $5000 in just a few short weeks. In addition, numerous gifts for children from our Wishlist on Amazon have been purchased and donated. This is a community that knows how to take care of each other. We are so humbled to be able to be a part of this project and a part of this community. 

So I managed to step away from this recent obsession just long enough to let you know that I am ok. I’ll be back soon.

XOXO

Allison

Thanksgiving

Mother Teresa

“…love until it hurts,  then there can be no more hurt, only more love”  Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa speaks in her writing and in her conversations about those living in “poverty”. She explains that people in poverty offer opportunities for us to love them. She says we should be grateful for the impoverished, that without them we wouldn’t have the opportunity to love the way we were meant to, the way Jesus taught us to. She also says poverty is anyone who is lonely, unloved, and unwanted. In fact, she says that being unwanted is a greater level of poverty than the poverty of money or goods or food.

Today I am grateful for my home, my husband, my children, and all of our health. I am grateful for my parents, and all our extended and enormously supportive family. Those are the things that, to me, are no brainers, or the things that are “easy”. Not that we don’t give thanks for them, because we do. But what I am most thankful for is the opportunity to love the way Jesus showed us, the way we were meant to. I am grateful for the opportunity to give to those who do not have, whether it be love, the feeling of being wanted, or a place to belong. I am grateful to be able to share this with my children and to raise them to know that they are here for a greater reason than to serve themselves. To have the opportunity to show them a love greater than the “easy” loves. I am grateful for my mother who taught me that I have a greater purpose and who raised me with the courage to continuously try to connect with my greater purpose.

On this day of giving thanks, I give thanks for all the “easy” things. But also I give thanks for the opportunity to make sacrifices of time, energy, tears, and sweat so that we can love others the way God loves us, the way he intended us to love each other.

XOXO

Allison

P.S. I love this photo of Mother Teresa. She is not cuddling a baby, or comforting the sick, like the more commonly used photos show her. She has a look of determination that is extremely powerful. As much as I love the pictures of her loving people, you know she wouldn’t have been able to do what she did without a little passion and determination too. I just love the look on her face, she looks so strong.

 

Gratitude (a day late).

I grew up spending my summer vacation staying with my Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Paul and my cousins, in Huntington Beach. I started flying down to visit, by myself, when I was just 7 years old, and continued to visit each Summer all the way through high school. Their home was filled with their 4 children, lots of personality, but most of all, love. When you walk into their home, it has a special smell, no matter how people grew older, or what changed from year to year, the smell was still exactly the same. Even 23 years later when I walk into their home, I take a deep breath and I am immersed into all the memories of my Summers spent there.  My cousin Amy is definitely the main character of all my memories. Amy is just one year older than I am, almost to the day. We spent our summers giggling uncontrollably, making pacts we thought we’d never keep, and swore to live closer to each other when we were grown-up. She proudly told all other cousins that I was her “favorite cousin” and I did the same. I don’t know exactly what it was, but there has always been something magical about our friendship, our sisterhood. Distance and time never has affected what we have.

Growing up we couldn’t be more different. She wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody. I was afraid of everything. She loved the spotlight and I was always terrified of it. She loved confrontation (still does) and I avoided it at all costs. Its 20 years later, 5 kids between our 2 families, we’ve hardly missed any summer visits. We’ve managed to honor 1 of our pacts. We swore we’d have daughters equal to if not closer than our age difference. Her daughter Sia is 9 months younger than my Sofia, so I’d say as far as childhood pacts we did alright. She lives minutes from her childhood home, and I do too. That’s a promise neither of us can figure out. We still get the giggles when we are together and even if it takes a month of phone tag (I am really not exaggerating, a month) we pick up right where we left off. Amy is one of the smartest, most honest, funniest, beautiful, loving people you will ever meet. If you know me well, you’ve probably met her. She is my girl.

Amy and Me on our wedding day

Amy, 

When we were young you were everything I wished I could be. You were fearless. Flying down each summer I remember giving myself a pep-talk wanting so badly to try to “be cool” like you. It never worked because the second I got there and was with you, I could only just be me. But that was enough for you, and so much easier for me. As much as I wanted to be more like you, you seemed to love me the way I came. I was quieter, more timid, and more scared than you were, but as different as you were from all that I was, you liked being with me just the same. Over the years your gift of loving me for exactly who I am has given me more than you know.

Even now as adults, no matter what insecurities, or barriers I create, when I am with you they all come down. And what is left is just me. My entire life you have given me a place to be myself. You have loved me over several phases of my life (remember the nose ring one?). No matter what I have tried out or tried on over the years, you always were there with a hug and a late night talk.

Amy, thank you for loving me without conditions, without judgement. Thank you for seeing through whatever fashion, or trend, or phase I was trying out, to see me underneath all that, and without fail. Thank you for never making me feel like I needed to be anything but who I am. You love me, and celebrate me for who I am, always. Thank you for giving me a place I know I can always be just me and nothing else. You have given me a lifetime of memories and love and sisterhood. Thank you. 

I love you. 

XOXO 

Allison 

 

PS. If I complained to Amy about how lame I was for being a day late with this post, she’d shrug and say “No Worries”, and I think, right no worries, and everything would be cool, just like her.

 

Speaking Gratitude with St. Lucy

“O, God, we humbly ask Thee, by the intercession of Thy Servant, St Lucy that Thou woudst give perfect vision to our eyes, that they may serve for The great honor and glory, and for salvation of our souls in this world, that we may come to the enjoyment of unfailing light of the Lamb of God in paradise.”

These were some of the words on the back of a prayer card given to me by a mom at drop-off this week at my daughter’s preschool. It’s the prayer of St. Lucy, the Patron Saint of Writing. As the week went on my big promise to write, to speak my gratitude, each Monday, was starting to weigh on me. The commitment had given me some sort of panic/writers block thing. On top of all that I had such a messy week, messy stuff at home, messy stuff with work, just plain hard.  And then there was Beth, sweet, Beth. Standing in the parking lot of pre-school, prayer card in hand like of gift from God. Ok not “like”, she literally was a gift from God. Did I mention she was dropping off her 3 year old daughter, with 8 week old twin boys in the car, yes TWINS. (Yes that part of the story matters.)  There she was with her St. Lucy Prayer card just waiting for me. I don’t have Beth’s cell phone number in my phone or her address even on my Christmas List (yet) she isn’t my go-to BFF on speed dial, but when I think back to all the scary things, all the big things in my life in the past year, there is Beth, in that memory. Just like she was this week, there she is, a gift from God.

I put the prayer card in my windshield with the prayer facing in so I could read it and pray it every chance I got, I wanted St. Lucy to save me from this panic attack that I had gotten myself into. And it turns out she just did.

Sweet Beth 🙂
Photo by Allyson Wiley Photography

Beth, 

Way back in May I made a huge scary decision to start a non-profit. Everyone told me not to do it. I did it anyway. Within days of signing the paperwork, I had hit the ground running. I had radio interviews, newspaper interviews, all of sudden I was terrified beyond belief, doubting if I would be able to do it. One of the first things I had to do was a radio interview. You listened. By the time I got home from the interview still shaking from nerves, in my email box was a note from you. I didn’t even know you had my email address. I still remember what you wrote, “You did a beautiful job”. I have carried that with me in my heart every day since. What your words did for me that day, a woman in doubt of her own self, I can never explain just how much it meant. To feel like just for a moment, “Someone thinks I can do this”. You weren’t a friend trying to say all the right things so that I felt better. At that point we really didn’t know each other at all. But you were still there cheering me on, telling me that I could do this. 

Since then you have been there so many other times, standing out in my memories, in my heart. When you sent me a message in July after seeing my girls at summer camp. You wanted me to “Thank” them for you, for staying with Lucy, she was unsure and a bit scared. You told me how sweet they were. It had been a hard week with the kids and your words made me realize that we were ok, that I was ok. 

Again, at the park when you had read an article  I had shared on the Virgin Mary, you made a point of finding me and thanking me, as it had meant so much to you. You didn’t know but, so much in my life was changing then. And that moment we shared about the Virgin Mary, Praying and spirituality had made my day. I was reassured that my new path, was the right one. 

And then this week. You had no idea that I was facing writers panic, and all the messy stuff at home, and at work. But again, you saved me.  Your kindness has brought me such joy over the past several months. You will probably never know just how much you have meant. Beth, Thank You. Thank you for always reaching out, always offering kind words, gratitude, and encouragement. I could not have done all that I have without you first believing in me and speaking those words to me. “You did a beautiful job.” Will forever be in my heart, when I think “I cannot” I will remember that you said, “YOU DID” ! 

I am more sure now than ever that God has put you here in my life for a reason.
God promises these words,” I am hope for all who are hopeless, I am eyes for all who long to see” and then he sends you, and I know He is there and that all will be ok.

Your Friend (I hope that title is ok with you),

XOXO

Allison

I Am BURSTING with Pride and Joy!!

 

I couldn’t help but share this on here today. I am so excited about this that I want to shout it from the mountain tops, but I have a blog so that’s where I am shouting it today :). 

Sonomans Offering Support is a non-profit that I started 6 months ago. SOS is a true labor of love for me. Ever since May 2012, when we began, our entire Board of Directors {aka: the 7 women who were brave enough to say “yes” to my crazy idea to save the world through love} has been dreaming of this project, Christmas Adopt-a-Family Program. I am so proud of each and every one of you for helping to get this off the ground in just a few short months. We are blessed with this opportunity to bring the JOY of Christmas to families who would otherwise not be able to celebrate it this year. 

Thank you, Amanda, Stephanie, Fabiola, Kelly, Kim, Allyson, and Stacie. You guys are true rockstars. 

 

In our continued efforts to providing support and strengthening community in the Sonoma Valley, Sonomans Offering Support is thrilled to announce our First Annual Christmas Adopt-A-Family Program. The Adopt-A-Family program will provide assistance to those families who would otherwise not have a holiday celebration. Our goal is to assist as many families as we can this season in providing children with toys, clothing, and other basic necessities. In addition, we will provide the entire family with household essentials, grocery gift certificates, and all items needed to prepare a family holiday meal. We hope that you will choose to join us in this  endeavor to providing the joy and happiness to these deserving children and families in our community this holiday season. 

 

 

If you would like to volunteer or make a donation please email us at sos.adoptafamily@gmail.com

 

If you would like to nominate a family in need of assistance this holiday season email us at sos.nominateafamily@gmail.com

 

Donations can be mailed to SOS Post Office Box 753 Sonoma CA 95476. Please make check out to SOS and in the memo line write “Adopt-A-Family” 

 

Merry Christmas to ALL!!! 

 

XOXO 

Allison

 

 

 

Speaking Gratitude

When I was in high school I commuted about 35 minutes out of my small town to go to school. It was a  brave decision, at 14 years old, to go to a school where I knew no one. That quickly changed and soon I had made friendships that were rooted deeply into who I was and who I would become. Because I lived out of town often spend time at a friend’s house , after school to do homework before practice or other activities. Liana. Liana was my high school soulmate. Her family welcomed me into their home, but more than that they took me into their family. It wasn’t that they saw something special in me, you see I could have been anyone. They would have loved anyone who walked in their door way back in the Spring 1996. I didn’t have to do anything special, say the right things, have the best manners. I know this to be true because I saw them love other people. I saw them open their door and their hearts to others, over the years, never thinking twice about it. They saw each person in God’s image, as a gift waiting to be opened, to be loved. Her parents, Marcia and David, they loved me and cared for me as their own, and to them I was because I was a child of God. They didn’t need another reason, and I don’t think they ever looked for one.

Liana and Me 2009

Last year Marcia was diagnosed with cancer. Just a few months ago in the late Summer, a mutual friend told me over dinner that the end was nearing. I had known that Marcia’s cancer was terminal but I hadn’t known how close she had gotten to the end. It had been just weeks since Liana sent me a picture of her and her mom on a cruise in Alaska–frilly cocktails in hand. Or had it? All of sudden I couldn’t remember. Hadn’t she just been doing well? It didn’t matter now. I got into the car after that dinner and tears fell down my face, I cried (hard)  the entire way home. I remember my husband saying, “I don’t mean to be insensitive–but WHY are you crying?” It was a fair question because at dinner I took the information with strength and a clear-headedness, asking only what I could do to help (of course I did–like I said I am the do-er) wanting only to ease the pain I knew my friends would be bearing in the coming days and weeks. It would seem to anyone, even my own husband, that I was “ok”. But I wasn’t. This was a woman who had loved me and cared for me, and fed me, and had been like a second mother to me for over 4 years. That night in the car, sobbing, unable to explain to my husband everything that Marcia had meant to me, I made a promise to myself to tell her. I had planned to sit and write everything that she had meant to me, everything she taught me about love, and life, and just how grateful I was. She needed to know that even 16 years later, I hadn’t forgotten for one moment what she had done for me and how much it had changed who I was today.

On September 19, 2012 Marcia passed away.

I am sitting here today telling you that I never wrote that letter. It hurts me just to type those words. I never wrote that letter. I could come up with a million reasons why. I won’t. I never wrote Marcia that letter.

I’ve thought so much about it since that day. I’ve tried to convince myself that she can see me now and that she knows how I felt and that she is watching me type these very words from Heaven. And as much faith as I have, I haven’t found much comfort in that. If I had spoken those words to her, if I had written them for her to read and to know them, this is what I would have said:

Marcia, 

I know it has been years since I first made my way through your doorstep, it seems like just yesterday, though, in some ways. I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to write this letter to you, but time has a way of getting the best of you. When I came into your home, a young 14 year old girl, you took me in as your own. You never seemed to need a reason to love me or care for me. That made me feel so special, so worthy, as if I was meant to be there, with you and your family all along. I know now, that I was, and because of your faith in God and his plan you never doubted that. I saw you loving other children, other people too. Watching you live your faith rather than preach it, has taught me so much as an adult, and as a mother. You tirelessly loved your husband and your children and also whoever God brought into your life, including me. Even to this day, 16 years later, I know if I really needed it, I would have a place in your home. You made loving people look easy. 

You always had an opinion about what should happen and what was best, but you never judged or held grudges. I don’t think I ever heard you speak a critical or negative word, and when we did, you always returned it with something positive about whatever we were putting down or complaining about. You didn’t spend your time or energy trying to convince us to do or think differently, to love like you did, instead, you showed us. 

When my children bring a friend or classmate home, I will think of what you gave me. I will give them a place in our home, in our family, without needing reason. I will see anyone who walks through the door as a gift from God, an opportunity to love God’s child. I will love, knowing that what might seem a small gesture to me, might mean the world to that child, that person. 

Marcia, I read through these words and they seem to fall short of what I want them to be, or mean to you. Maybe that is why I have never been able to speak them, to write them. Because really, no words can express the gratitude that is in my heart for you. Being in your presence, made me feel closer to God, and because of that I always felt like I was right where I was supposed to be, like I was home. So because there are no words great enough to say it, Thank You. Thank you for living God’s word with grace and beauty. For teaching me in a greater way than words, or lectures, or books ever could. Thank You. 

Loving You Always, 

Allison

Marcia Elizondo
Picture by meghanrobertsphotography.com

Even her passing I have learned a great lesson from Marcia.

I have always thought of myself as a person of gratitude. I have a lot to be grateful for and I thank God daily, hourly, by the minute even,  for so many things, so many people. Situations others would see as burdens, I see as blessings, as opportunities and express gratitude, to God,  for those opportunities. But this promise I failed to keep has changed me. Why did I fail to speak my gratitude to Marcia? Why didn’t I make time for something that meant so much? Just like truth, gratitude doesn’t mean much unless it is spoken. When we speak gratitude, we are giving a gift. It has haunted me every day since her passing and I now have a bigger promise, one I intend to keep. I am beginning a personal gratitude campaign. Each week I will speak gratitude to someone who has done something, small or big. Someone I have been thankful for in my heart, to God, but have never properly expressed  to them. Each Monday will be Speaking Gratitude day here on the blog, and I will post my words here, in an open letter. If anyone wants to join me on this journey, please feel free. If not, that is ok too, but all are welcome  to join on Speaking Gratitude.  You can email them to me too, if you want me to include them here. Speaking our truth and our gratitude together.

catchingsoulsblog@gmail.com

XOXO

Allison

Catching Souls

I am not a writer. Before now, I have never considered starting a blog. I actually have always despised writing and I think that is because I am simply not good at it. My friend Steph recently told me, “You are so good at writing” which I was surprised and flattered until she followed with, “You should have been a lawyer”. Who wants to read that? That sounds ridiculously boring. Right? I will not put down words that sound like art or poetry. So if you are looking for that–you are in the wrong place. If the grammar is awful, the punctuation wrong, or the writing just plain terrible, I am truly sorry.

Why now am I starting this blog?

Nine months ago my life changed when I received an invitation. Not an invitation in the mail or an Evite, but an invitation from the world, an invitation from God. It was more like this, than the invitation you might be picturing in your head. It wasn’t one singular moment in which I woke up, heard the voice of God from above, lightening striking,  and poof, I changed everything in my life. It was days, weeks and months, and I finally waved my white flag and surrendered. I’ll get more into the details of what the invitation exactly was in another blog. Sometimes I wish I had just said “yes” immediately, but I was scared.  I have 3 young children, my marriage, and our already-too-busy  life. I couldn’t imagine doing anymore than what I already had on my plate. I couldn’t imagine doing what was being asked of me. I never said, “no”, but I just couldn’t say “yes”, not for a long time. But God never gave up one me. {Thank You God} Everyday He was back with His plan. And so began my surrender and my journey.

Sometime between then and now I have been inspired by people who put their truth out to the world. They write beautifully honest words and bravely send them into the world for everyone and anyone who wants to enjoy them. I admire these people, these women, intensely.  I also find strength in their truth. They are not always feel good stories. Some are just plain painful and hard to read, but they are always honest. I’ve found the more I cling to their truths, the more people I connect with who speak their truth, the stronger I have become. I feel more connected to these women, to their truths, than I do to a lot of other things in the world. These connections were creating  links like you would see in a net, each connection or link making me stronger, building a net inside me which caught my soul. I kept coming back the Mother Teresa quote at the top of my blog, finally realizing I was living that. My soul was being caught by a net of love, and truth, which resulted in pure joy. My acupuncturist (Hi Jen!) once told me that they train experts to be able to recognize counterfeit money, by only studying real money. They never study the fakes, they study just real money. She said it’s the same with life, with people. This was life changing for me. It made me shift a lot of things in my life. Not putting any real energy into anything other than what I know to be true has been a powerful thing. It’s made me wonder, What if we all spoke our truths, like these women do,  for the world to read? If I am gaining so much from connecting with their honesty, it only made sense for me, at this point to begin to share the truth of my new journey.

 Nine months, one non-profit, 8 women brave enough to join me, an improved and closer relationship with God, a new obsession with Mother Teresa {I mean who doesn’t love her?}, and one huge commitment to love and compassion later… I am ready to share with you my journey, whoever the you might be. My friends, my family, my community, my world. It won’t be the best writing you’ve ever read , because I am a do-er more than I am a writer. But what I am doing, though small, I am doing with great love. {M.T.} Through the honesty of my own path I hope to inspire others, in some way, on their own path, whatever that might be. If I am able to make just one of those connections or links in a net that might catch a soul, this will have been good.

I have to admit sending my words out to the world is a bit scary, but if I have learned one thing in the past year, it is that scary is sometimes good. So here it goes…

XOXO

Allison

PS If you want to read more about the women I speak of, telling their truths, you can read their stories here and here. These are just my faves. I promise to share more later. Enjoy.