thoughts of puppy love

shared by Marlo R. Beall, her sister

Last Saturday, our family adopted a dog. Ava has been asking for a dog to join our family since she could talk, and we were lucky enough to find a sweet, mellow, adorable dog named Fiona at the Alameda Animal Shelter. She is the perfect fit for us.

Considering how perfect a match Fiona is for our family, I am certain that Cindy had a hand in bringing Fiona into our lives. Much like Nanook was Cindy's dog, Fiona is especially connected to Ava; they're like two peas in a pod.

In many ways, having a family dog is another way to keep Cindy's memory alive everyday.

thoughts of lunch money

shared by VJ Rabuy, her sister

When Cindy and I were kids, we used to bring our school lunch a lot. We definitely brought lunch more days than we bought lunch every week.

Our Dad created a simple system that kept track of how may times we would buy lunch each month. The daily cost for lunch was $1; so we had an envelope filled with $20 in ones, and the numbers 1-20 were written on the outside of the envelope. On the days we would buy lunch, we wrote our name by the number until all the numbers were filled.

Nowadays I try to only bring my lunch, and limit my outside food purchases to once a week. I don’t remember what happened to those extra dollars, if there were any, at month’s end. Perhaps it went back into the pot. If Cindy and I were allowed to keep our remaining lunch money, I imagine we would have used it to buy candy.