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LIFE & LIVING
A good story can change the way you see the world!
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Pandemic Poetry
Who did we used to be before “normal” was a place to which we longed to return? If we find that place again, will we be restored to our...
stephanieraffelock
Jan 23, 20222 min read
62 views
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Cultivate the Sweet Moments
Tom dresses up like Santa Claus. He has decorated a corner of his front yard with Christmas backdrops pinned to the fence, along with...
stephanieraffelock
Dec 14, 20212 min read
65 views
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Keep The Faith
Sometime in April of 1973, just days after I turned twenty-one, I started waitressing at The Whisky A Go Go on Sunset Boulevard. I knew...
stephanieraffelock
Nov 7, 20213 min read
80 views
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The Her Spirit Writing Retreat
Let the beauty we love, be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ~Rumi I looked forward to the retreat for...
stephanieraffelock
Oct 30, 20213 min read
150 views
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The Frightening Fade of Roe v. Wade
Photo Credit: Sebastian Kaczoroski Texas. Ground Zero. Back to where we started almost fifty years ago. It took three years for Roe v....
stephanieraffelock
Sep 6, 20214 min read
73 views
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Making A Book
I am so grateful to be writing. The process helps me to make sense of the world and make sense of my life. Making books is my passion,...
stephanieraffelock
Aug 22, 20216 min read
75 views
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Altars and Everyday Rituals
The small stone Buddha was meant for the garden, but it was cold and raining the day that I brought it home. Thinking I’d move it outside...
stephanieraffelock
Jul 17, 20213 min read
70 views
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Caution: Writer Stretching
I put aside a work in progress, a manuscript that needs to settle before I can pick it up again. Such an action stirs in me other...
stephanieraffelock
Jul 7, 20212 min read
64 views
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Menopause Is An Initiation
Why does nature keep us alive after we can no longer reproduce? Our biological usefulness that assures the proliferation of the species...
stephanieraffelock
Jun 29, 20216 min read
72 views
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A Summer Prayer
For ten days, I haven’t written a thing. Instead, I’ve let myself be overcome by summer, getting drunk on the exquisite heat that lingers...
stephanieraffelock
Jun 19, 20212 min read
87 views
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Marking the Years
Recently, my friend Tara was taking some pictures of me in the park. In one shot, the light was just right, revealing how silver my hair...
stephanieraffelock
May 23, 20213 min read
137 views
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Happy Mother's Day
If she were alive this mother’s day, my mom would be a hundred and ten years old. She’s been gone for twenty years, but I can still hear...
stephanieraffelock
May 6, 20214 min read
68 views
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Ode To An Aging Neck
I would love to tell you that I’m so evolved that I never lament lost youth. But, I’m only human, and today this human is thinking way...
stephanieraffelock
Apr 23, 20213 min read
126 views
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Pandemics, Politics and Masks, Oh My
The whole mask thing is exhausting. I don’t mean wearing a mask. I understand that pathogens can be passed through air. I see a mask as a...
stephanieraffelock
Apr 17, 20213 min read
61 views
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The How of Self-Love and Acceptance
My message, work, and sense of purpose is about women. I advocate for women to live lives of opportunity and equality on a level playing...
stephanieraffelock
Apr 8, 20213 min read
70 views
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A Kayak, A Birthday and Women Friends
I try to stay on a schedule and post a new blog every Thursday or Friday. But this week, I feel like a little kid about to be let out of...
stephanieraffelock
Apr 2, 20213 min read
66 views
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
For the longest time, I thought that my husband and I were the worst dinner guest in the world. When kind and unsuspecting people invite...
stephanieraffelock
Mar 19, 20214 min read
122 views
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The Great Texas Freeze of 2021
Snowed in. Now there’s a phrase I never expected to use again. Not when hubby said to me, just prior to our move here, “we’re going to...
stephanieraffelock
Feb 18, 20213 min read
145 views
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Swimming With The Dolphins
The road is straight, marsh water on either side. A lot of the Keys are like this; a solid piece of highway, that banks down to the...
stephanieraffelock
Feb 12, 20217 min read
60 views
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A Brief History Of A Screen Filled Life
I remember my first business website. So new was the idea, that the local newspaper called and asked if they could do a story on my...
stephanieraffelock
Feb 4, 20214 min read
49 views
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