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Book Things I Want to Tell My Mother on Her 59th Birthday

Download or read book Things I Want to Tell My Mother on Her 59th Birthday written by #1 Birthday PUB and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-20 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best Notebook to Stay organized, This birthday Blank Lined Journal, made to fit perfectly in a backpack or satchel. Cool with Stunning cover design will be the joy and pride of every person.Do you know someone whose birthday is coming up? Put a smile on their face, as it is the perfect gift birthday under 10 dollars and also a good alternative for birthday cards! Journal features:Dimensions: 6" x 9" Perfect for Writing: 120 pages Lined paper and white background.Multipurpose: use it as a Goals notebook, Blog log, Quotes journal, Favourite recipes book, Doodle book, Composition notebook, Bullet Journal, Inspiration Notebook, 'TO DO' Daily notebook, Brainstorming...Perfect for gifts: Surprise your women with THis Awesome notebook.

Book People I Want to Punch in the Throat

Download or read book People I Want to Punch in the Throat written by Jen Mann and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A debut collection of witty, biting essays laced with a surprising warmth, from Jen Mann, the writer behind the popular blog People I Want to Punch in the Throat People I want to punch in the throat: • anyone who feels the need to bling her washer and dryer • humblebraggers • people who treat their pets like children Jen Mann doesn’t have a filter, which sometimes gets her in trouble with her neighbors, her fellow PTA moms, and that one woman who tried to sell her sex toys at a home shopping party. Known for her hilariously acerbic observations on her blog, People I Want to Punch in the Throat, Mann now brings her sharp wit to bear on suburban life, marriage, and motherhood in this laugh-out-loud collection of essays. From the politics of joining a play group, to the thrill of mothers’ night out at the gun range, to the rewards of your most meaningful relationship (the one you have with your cleaning lady), nothing is sacred or off-limits. So the next time you find yourself wearing fuzzy bunny pajamas in the school carpool line or accidentally stuck at a co-worker’s swingers party, just think, What would Jen Mann do? Or better yet, buy her book. Praise for People I Want to Punch in the Throat “People I Want to Punch in the Throat is so good that it’ll make you want to adopt all the cats in the world. I’m not sure about the correlation, but it’s that good. It should come with a warning.”—Jenny Lawson, author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened “Jen Mann has an amazing way of telling stories that will make you cringe and burst out laughing at the same time. From swinger parties to racist toddlers, she makes the suburbs unbelievably funny.”—Karen Alpert, author of I Heart My Little A-Holes “Jen Mann says the things we’re all too afraid to say. Her honest and hilarious writing style reminds me of David Sedaris and Tina Fey.”—Robin O’Bryant, author of Ketchup Is a Vegetable: And Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves “Jen Mann’s shrewd and unrelenting assault on the absurdity of suburban life is an honest peek into the occasional nightmare that is part of living the American dream. I love Jen. I wish she was my neighbor. It’s so refreshing to know that I’m not the only one who wants to punch almost everyone in the f***ing throat.”—Nicole Knepper, author of Moms Who Drink And Swear

Book Brave Thinking

    Book Details:
  • Author : Mary Morrissey
  • Publisher : Waterside Pub
  • Release : 2015-01-20
  • ISBN : 9781939116741
  • Pages : 192 pages

Download or read book Brave Thinking written by Mary Morrissey and published by Waterside Pub. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BRAVE THINKING is the culmination of more than 40 years of study, and 30 years of teaching this technology of transformation. People struggle with relationships. They struggle with money. They struggle with health. I’ve been coaching first as a minister, then for the last decade as a trainer outside the church world. But teaching, studying, and working in this laboratory called life. I’ve been both a student, and I’ve been a trainer in this laboratory, helping people unlock what it is they would love to have, be, do, give in their life. And helping them understand their capacity to do this. To use brave thinking and tap into the field of infinite possibility, potentiality, and work with a particular dream vision for their lives, so they can begin to see the pattern. Because once you see the pattern of how thoughts become things and how you can take what looks like very little and translate it into something much more – it’s as different as moving from simple addition to squaring in math. When you are working with simple addition, the only way to get to 25 is you must amass 25 ones. When you learn to multiply you find that you only need two 5’s to get to that same result. It takes way less effort and you have way more results. And when you move up the ladder of awareness a little bit further, you see you only need one 5. Brave Thinking will help people recognize that they have everything they need to live a life they love living, and a life that really has meaning and purpose and substance and significance. And I know how to do that. I know how to help them. BRAVE THINKING provides the code to a very different kind of thinking. Either one opens the doors to a potential that is something we are in love with, or something we fear. The purpose of this book is to provide very concrete direct clear simple understandings. Such as the world was flat or other kinds of commonplace thinking and help them recognize how much of that has governed their lives or the lives of people they know. It will show examples of people who dared to think beyond the boundaries of ordinary thinking and who dared to learn a new system of thinking. Rather than being condition based in a way of living life, they began to live a life that is vision-driven. And they came from a vision rather than living from circumstance. Most people think that when the circumstances change, ¡§then I can make a new decision, “then I can have something” “then I can be something,” “then I can do something.” What if it’s just the opposite? When you watch your television, and there are other common examples we’ll use, when you turn on a TV, the picture you are seeing comes from the frequency that your tuner is tuned to. And when you go to a movie theater, the dancing images on the screen are simply reflections of the light passing through the film that’s held before the projector.

Book Grandparent Parents

    Book Details:
  • Author :
  • Publisher : Michael Fulks
  • Release :
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 25 pages

Download or read book Grandparent Parents written by and published by Michael Fulks. This book was released on with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Hyperbole and a Half

    Book Details:
  • Author : Allie Brosh
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2013-10-29
  • ISBN : 1451666187
  • Pages : 288 pages

Download or read book Hyperbole and a Half written by Allie Brosh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Book Best MOM Since May 1962

    Book Details:
  • Author : Publishing Dee-Sign
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2021-04-18
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 110 pages

Download or read book Best MOM Since May 1962 written by Publishing Dee-Sign and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-18 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best Mom since May This handy 6" x 9" lined notebook is a great inexpensive gift idea for your Mother. And This Notebook is perfect for a birthday gift for Adoptive Mom, Stepmother, Foster Mom, Also is a Great Gift Idea For other occasions like Christmas, Valentine's day, etc.... White Paper high quality this notebook journal is a beautifully, glossy notebook complete with 120 pages of ruled white paper which is ideal for those who want to write their everyday goals, thoughts, planners that come to mind... Daily diary/journal/notebook to write in, for creative writing, for creating a list, for scheduling, Organizing, and Recording your thoughts. Perfectly sized at 6" x 9" 110 pages Softcover Bookbinding Flexible Paperback Scroll to the top of the page and click the Add to Cart button.

Book Telling Stories

Download or read book Telling Stories written by Lee Martin and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prolific and award-winning writer, Lee Martin has put pen to paper to offer his wisdom, honed during thirty years of teaching the oh-so-elusive art of writing. Telling Stories is intended for anyone interested in thinking more about the elements of storytelling in short stories, novels, and memoirs. Martin clearly delineates helpful and practical techniques for demystifying the writing process and provides tools for perfecting the art of the scene, characterization, detail, point of view, language, and revision—in short, the art of writing. His discussion of the craft in his own life draws from experiences, memories, and stories to provide a more personal perspective on the elements of writing. Martin provides encouragement by sharing what he’s learned from his journey through frustrations, challenges, and successes. Most important, Telling Stories emphasizes that you are not alone on this journey and that writers must remain focused on what they love: the process of moving words on the page. By focusing on that purpose, Martin contends, the journey will always take you where you’re meant to go.

Book Significant Objects

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joshua Glenn
  • Publisher : Fantagraphics Books
  • Release : 2012-08-06
  • ISBN : 1606995251
  • Pages : 258 pages

Download or read book Significant Objects written by Joshua Glenn and published by Fantagraphics Books. This book was released on 2012-08-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 100 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES ABOUT ORDINARY THINGS SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS: A Literary and Economic Experiment Can a great story transform a worthless trinket into a significant object? The Significant Objects project set out to answer that question once and for all, by recruiting a highly impressive crew of creative writers to invent stories about an unimpressive menagerie of items rescued from thrift stores and yard sales. That secondhand flotsam definitely becomes more valuable: sold on eBay, objects originally picked up for a buck or so sold for thousands of dollars in total — making the project a sensation in the literary blogosphere along the way. But something else happened, too: The stories created were astonishing, a cavalcade of surprising responses to the challenge of manufacturing significance. Who would have believed that random junk could inspire so much imagination? The founders of the Significant Objects project, that’s who. This book collects 100 of the finest tales from this unprecedented creative experiment; you’ll never look at a thrift-store curiosity the same way again. FEATURING ORIGINAL STORIES BY: Chris Adrian • Rob Agredo • Kurt Andersen • Rachel Axler • Rob Baedeker • Nicholson Baker • Rosecrans Baldwin • Matthew Battles • Charles Baxter • Kate Bernheimer • Susanna Breslin • Kevin Brockmeier • Matt Brown • Blake Butler • Meg Cabot • Tim Carvell • Patrick Cates • Dan Chaon • Susanna Daniel • Adam Davies • Kathryn Davis • Matthew De Abaitua • Stacey • D'Erasmo • Helen DeWitt • Doug Dorst • Mark Doty • Ben Ehrenreich • Mark Frauenfelder • Amy Fusselman • William Gibson • Myla Goldberg • Ben Greenman • Jason Grote • Jim Hanas • Jennifer Michael Hecht • Sheila Heti • Christine Hill • Dara Horn • Shelley Jackson • Heidi Julavits • Ben Katchor • Matt Klam • Wayne Koestenbaum • Josh Kramer • Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer • Neil LaBute • Victor LaValle • J. Robert Lennon • Jonathan Lethem • Todd Levin • Laura Lippman • Mimi Lipson • Robert Lopez • Joe Lyons • Sarah Manguso • Merrill Markoe • Tom McCarthy • Miranda Mellis • Lydia Millet • Maud Newton • Annie Nocenti • Stephen O’Connor • Stewart O’Nan • Jenny Offill • Gary Panter • Ed Park • James Parker • Benjamin Percy • Mark Jude Poirier • Padgett Powell • Bob Powers • Todd Pruzan • Dan Reines • Nathaniel Rich • Peter Rock • Lucinda Rosenfeld • Greg Rowland • Luc Sante • R.K. Scher • Toni Schlesinger • Matthew Sharpe • Jim Shepard • David Shields • Marisa Silver • Curtis Sittenfeld • Bruce Sterling • Scarlett Thomas • Jeff Turrentine • Deb Olin Unferth • Tom Vanderbilt • Matthew J. Wells • Joe Wenderoth • Margaret Wertheim • Colleen Werthmann • Colson Whitehead • Carl Wilson • Cintra Wilson • Sari Wilson • Douglas Wolk • John Wray

Book 936 Pennies

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eryn Lynum
  • Publisher : Baker Books
  • Release : 2018-02-06
  • ISBN : 1493413449
  • Pages : 256 pages

Download or read book 936 Pennies written by Eryn Lynum and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Make the Most of Your Time with Your Children On the day of their baby dedication, Eryn and her husband were given a jar of 936 pennies. The jar contained a penny for every week they would raise their child until graduation, and they were instructed to remove one penny each Sunday as a reminder, placing it into another jar as an investment. At some point every parent realizes time is moving swiftly, and they ask themselves, How am I investing in my child? Through personal stories and biblical examples, 936 Pennies will help you discover how to capture time and use it to its fullest potential, replacing guilt and regrets with freedom. Meanwhile, your kids will see how simple choices, like putting the cell phone down and going on a family hike, will make all the difference. Together you will stretch time and make it richer. Craft a family legacy in tune with God's heartbeat as you capture a new vision for your children and learn the best ways to spend your pennies.

Book I Love Jesus  But I Want to Die

Download or read book I Love Jesus But I Want to Die written by Sarah J. Robinson and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

Book I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor

Download or read book I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor written by Jason J. Ventre and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor tells author Jason Ventre's life story-so far anyway. He shares his history for many reasons, but chief among them is the need to explain his life experiences so that others may try to avoid having them. Diagnosed with bipolar syndrome, he talks honestly about the repercussions of his decisions-mostly bad ones, when considered on a scale from moderate to devastating. He still deals with repercussions from those choices on a daily basis. From describing the funny challenges of childhood and trying to figure out what mattered and what didn't to recalling his failed relationships, Ventre paints an honest picture of a boy who was just different. Rather than trying to change who he was, he just went with whatever he felt-with unforgettable results. Now he takes those results and unapologetically turns them into lessons. Ventre reminds us that we all have pasts full of mistakes; although it might be a great thought to say that we can learn from our past, history has shown us that we're more likely to just "think" that we've learned from our mistakes as we continue to make them. I Think I Need to Talk to a Doctor shows that sometimes laughing at our irrational decisions might be the only way to grow from them and hopefully teach others not to travel down the same road of lost maturity.

Book At Last There Is Nothing Left to Say

Download or read book At Last There Is Nothing Left to Say written by Matthew Good and published by Insomniac Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the landscape of At Last There Is Nothing Left To Say, Matthew Good's debut book of stories. Taking the form of an artist's journal, Good's tales grind through dark, often violent places animated by voices warped by hallucination and flesh chafed by reality. From the ramblings of an opium-riddled adventurer to treatises on life from a mind rattled by the world; from the tragic end of a teen queen to a day in the life of a rock star; from the execution of the Self by the Other to the pull between rules and freedom, this is a landscape located halfway between imagination and reality, a world that rocks between imagination and reality, a world that rocks between sleep and wakefulness, sanity and insanity, sobriety and inebriation.

Book Ever Cursed

    Book Details:
  • Author : Corey Ann Haydu
  • Publisher : Simon Pulse
  • Release : 2020-07-28
  • ISBN : 1534437037
  • Pages : 304 pages

Download or read book Ever Cursed written by Corey Ann Haydu and published by Simon Pulse. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Damsel meets A Heart in a Body in the World in this incisive and lyrical feminist fairy tale about a princess determined to save her sisters from a curse, even if it means allying herself with the very witch who cast it. The Princesses of Ever are beloved by the kingdom and their father, the King. They are cherished, admired. Cursed. Jane, Alice, Nora, Grace, and Eden carry the burden of being punished for a crime they did not commit, or even know about. They are each cursed to be Without one essential thing—the ability to eat, sleep, love, remember, or hope. And their mother, the Queen, is imprisoned, frozen in time in an unbreakable glass box. But when Eden’s curse sets in on her thirteenth birthday, the princesses are given the opportunity to break the curse, preventing it from becoming a True Spell and dooming the princesses for life. To do this, they must confront the one who cast the spell—Reagan, a young witch who might not be the villain they thought—as well as the wickedness plaguing their own kingdom…and family. Told through the eyes of Reagan and Jane—the witch and the bewitched—this insightful twist of a fairy tale explores power in a patriarchal kingdom not unlike our own.

Book Sometimes Like a Gleaner

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rebecca Mark
  • Publisher : Outskirts Press
  • Release : 2022-12-14
  • ISBN : 197726381X
  • Pages : 804 pages

Download or read book Sometimes Like a Gleaner written by Rebecca Mark and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2022-12-14 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does a young woman's life unfold when she walks in on her husband not once, but twice, in bed with other women? While Emma Aspen White wants to have a meaningful life and career, she has long known that her collegiate aspiration is a Mrs. Degree. She believes that she has achieved that with her first love, Dr. Marc White. However, when that marriage ends, Emma's journey over the next forty-some years, provides plenty of drama. Born in 1955 in Des Moines, Iowa, Emma begins her story at age thirteen when she decides to spend her freshman year of high school at Rosedale, a boarding school in Massachusetts. She concludes her narrative in June 2021 when, at almost sixty-six years old, she is contemplating her life and her competency as a mother, a grandmother, and a friend. During these many years, Emma recounts the times she has with the four great loves of her life: her ex-husband Marc; Scott Olson, the man who helps her rear her son; her former professor, the libidinous poet Garnett de Vere; and Michael FitzRobert, the self-made millionaire with whom she hopes to spend the rest of her life. In addition to recounting her time with these four men as well as other romantic escapades, Emma also shares her relationships to her parents, Henry and Elizabeth Aspen; her counselors, Dr. Agatha Harbrace and Dr. Leah Friedmann; and her three closest friends: her rich Rosedale roommate Penny Porter; her high school friend, the feisty feminist Ginny Wheelock; and her sorority sister, Sara Keatson Woodley. However, the prime relationship Emma has is with her adopted son Peter, a relationship that, over forty years, generates both happiness and heartache. As the eventual owner of a real estate agency, Emma is an upper-middle class white woman who spends most of her life in Iowa. Perhaps what makes Emma so likeable is that she is inordinately beautiful, fairly honest about her character flaws, smart, compassionate, and hopeful. But she does make mistakes. In October 2007, at their 30th college reunion, Emma is alone with Marc, and both of them--naked!-- reveal so much about themselves in a dramatic scene. The next time they are alone occurs in 2021 when, as grandparents, they are in the Illinois kitchen of their son Peter and his wife Ellie. And once again, so much is revealed. In June 2021, Emma meets a young woman, Pamela Jennison, while in the New York apartment of her old friend Penny. As Emma talks with Penny's niece Pamela, Emma demonstrates some of her strongest traits--her abilities to glean information about another human being, to empathize, to celebrate the commonalities of the human condition. Her former lover Garnett, the poet fond of alliteration, who had considered Emma his muse, had nicknamed her his "Glamorous Gleaner." At the end of Emma and Pamela's conversation, there is a surprise, a surprise that even Emma did not see coming!

Book Dear Zoe    Love Dad  Our Journey through IVF to the NICU to your 1st Birthday

Download or read book Dear Zoe Love Dad Our Journey through IVF to the NICU to your 1st Birthday written by Ryan Richardson and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I began writing to my unborn child as soon as my wife and I decided to have a child. Never could I have imagined what an amazing journey was set in motion. These intensely personal letters capture my hopes and fears as my wife and I progress through the various stages of IVF, our daughter's stay in the NICU, and our first year as a family. From giving my wife daily shots to staring at the various screens monitoring my newborn daughter, the book attempts to capture the emotions of a loving husband and father trying to be the man both his girls need. The book concludes with my honest, unadulterated reflections on having going through IVF and the NICU. My hope is that my candid sharing may help others gain a greater sense of the emotions involved in having an IVF or NICU baby.

Book Linked

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gordon Korman
  • Publisher : Scholastic Inc.
  • Release : 2021-07-20
  • ISBN : 1338629123
  • Pages : 216 pages

Download or read book Linked written by Gordon Korman and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unforgettable novel from the New York Times bestseller Gordon Korman Link, Michael, and Dana live in a quiet town. But it's woken up very quickly when someone sneaks into school and vandalizes it with a swastika. Nobody can believe it. How could such a symbol of hate end up in the middle of their school? Who would do such a thing? Because Michael was the first person to see it, he's the first suspect. Because Link is one of the most popular guys in school, everyone's looking to him to figure it out. And because Dana's the only Jewish girl in the whole town, everyone's treating her more like an outsider than ever. The mystery deepens as more swastikas begin to appear. Some students decide to fight back and start a project to bring people together instead of dividing them further. The closer Link, Michael, and Dana get to the truth, the more there is to face-not just the crimes of the present, but the crimes of the past. With Linked, Gordon Korman, the author of the acclaimed novel Restart, poses a mystery for all readers where the who did it? isn't nearly as important as the why?

Book Walking the Mona Lisa

Download or read book Walking the Mona Lisa written by Jim Simpson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walking the Mona Lisa is a true story, although you may not believe some parts. I was there and sometimes I don’t believe it. It’s an attempt to chronicle the life of a devoted, compassionate, and gifted golden retriever, and the affect she had on those around her, specifically me. Two family tragedies had left me bitter and alone, and I was convinced I would remain that way for the rest of my life. Then Ilsa came along and all that changed. Ilsa was purebred golden who came from essentially dog royalty. Her grandfather was Topbrass Cotton who was a National Amateur Field Trial Champion, the equivalent of a Master’s or Wimbledon winner. She grew to become a world-class retriever in her own right, and had I trained her differently I’m sure she could have won numerous field trials. At first I didn’t recognize Ilsa’s full potential. That didn’t happen until I met my wife, who has a wonderful understanding of dogs. With her help Ilsa grew to become a serenely confident, appreciative and giving being. Ilsa rapidly grew into a reliable, hard-working, enthusiastic and willing hunting companion. She was doing things at 6- and 8-months old which other dogs wouldn’t be able to do until they were 2 or 3 years old. Multiple retrieves were no problem since she trusted me implicitly; if I told her there was something to retrieve she believed me and gave it her best. By the time she was 5 she was better than most hunting dogs would ever be; she rarely flushed birds out of range, she didn’t fidget in the blind so as to scare away decoying birds, and she never gave up. With Marcy’s tutelage, I quickly realized we needed to reward Ilsa in special ways since she was such a special being. I had been taking her everywhere with me before I met Marcy, including to work and on an extended road trip, but Marcy convinced me she deserved more. We started to give her special food treats such as homemade dog biscuits of various flavors, dried fruit and frozen yogurt. In addition she was a co-host at all our parties, and our friends came to expect Ilsa to greet them at the door. Ilsa had had a profound effect on me; I had changed from a grumpy, lonely man to someone who once again reveled in the beauties of nature and the simpler things in life. Because of Ilsa I was able to welcome Marcy into my life (and Ilsa’s) and we became “The Three Sweeties”. And we continued to show Ilsa our appreciation by including her in everything we did, including our wedding. She also got to travel with us whenever possible, so that when she died she had swum in both oceans, stayed in 4-star hotels, traveled by private train car, limousine and horse-drawn carriage, and had parties thrown in her honor. In so many ways Ilsa was much more than just a dog. She was an integral part of our lives and she had a say in most everything we did. Her legacy lives on in our hearts and minds. I will always cherish every moment I had with her.