Welcome to my adventurous and daily writing space!
Hi, I’m Jaclynn.
I’m often nostalgic and unequivocally curious.
As a passionate mental health counselor, I’m here to share helpful and healthy tidbits from my life.
I’m a recent Georgia transplant but lifelong Washington state native, a master-level organizer, a proud mom to my 5-year-old daughter Evelyn, an intermittent faster, and a struggling A-2 Spanish learner (emphasis on “struggling”).
Music is a big part of my world, so you’ll find lyrics, band names, and song titles sprinkled throughout my posts. They’re little breadcrumbs from my heart to yours.
I hope this space brings you laughter, inspiration, and the occasional “aha” moment. Whether you’re here for a quick read or a deep dive, I’m grateful for your time and company.
Oh, and I’m 43 now—so whether this blog’s title still feels relevant is entirely up to you.
Thank you for being here. Love, me
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Rrrrrr Matey
I’m too tired to write. Today was a long, lovely blur of jigsaw-puzzling Santa Claus and kitty cats, visiting my friend Kristen, dressing…
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Understanding Can Wait
I met Jakob. He’s a big, bad troll with endearingly prominent toes and fingernails, caught mid-lounging, casually gripping the two trees that flank…
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The Airport Roll of Shame
I monitor the pitch-and-roll gauge on the seatback screen in front of me. I’m impressed with Delta’s “command center” data screen—specifically the 510–530…
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When the Number Isn’t 100%
All my devices—Kindle, phone, laptop, headphones, iPad, and iPad stencil—are at maximum battery capacity. Their chargers are neatly coiled in a billfold-sized makeup…
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A Quiet Kind of Care
Years ago, I wrote a letter to myself from my future self. It’s handwritten and folded up to the size of a notecard.…
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Pretend I’m the Best
It’s December 13th. As Santa does last minute check and balance of the naughty and nice list and stuffs Donner and Blitzen with…
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The Spirit Within: A Poem-like Waxing
My holiday spirit waxes and wanes, day to day, moment to moment — the tide comes in, then slips back out. I ride…
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Sticky As Hell
I mimic other writers’ styles. I take a mini-challenge to the page, their a caricature propped on my shoulder, and I ask, What…
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A Masterful Woman
I had a cool story to share, but I forgot it somewhere between driving three laps through a festive country-home yard’s Christmas lights,…
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Internal Weather Patterns
This morning’s session was about a line—a boundary between when something genuinely needs addressing and when we’re slipping into unnecessary drama. We separated…
Read on!Gentle Sweeps: DIYing Advice
According to the DIY article, ironing on the banding edging was the most tedious step when building an over-ornament coffee table. However, the…
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That Dern Ol’ Cabin
How hard it is to sit and be quiet for even a moment. Evelyn doesn’t know where to put a toy, Dave’s asking…
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An Unreasonable Person
I’m rooting for Georgia in the SEC Championship football game. I don’t feel bad about it either. UW has always been my college…
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Writing the Sweet Stuff
Not always, but authenticity is frequently the most important bullseye to me when writing. However, instead of target shooting out back for fun,…
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A Christmas Miracle
Ding dong. The doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the gentleman who left his wood…
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Smooth As A Baby’s Bottom
Inside me, it’s pre-boiling time. Small bubbles form, and a beehive of activity buzzes. Anticipation. Of returning home. Home that feels like a…
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Bananas Gone Wild
Life is often boring. So boring that our casual greetings, instead of “good” or “fine,” become “same ol’ same ol’” and “same shit,…
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Forgiveness: The Plate I Want to Throw
I cannot wrap my head around forgiveness—it’s the letting-go, non-attachment, monk-in-lotus-position vibe that makes my brain back up like a men’s toilet on…
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Prisoner of the Past
Last night, I got stuck because my thoughts have trap doors. And I’m fairly certain I’m not the only one who barely escapes…
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Social Media Shakeup
Should I stop—wait, not should, but when should I stop social media? Yesterday? Back when Myspace came out, twenty years ago. More and…
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The Truest Love: A Poem
We have a love like that—the kind from movies,from the ages. It’s me at my lowestand you’re there. It’s two people fighting for…
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Loving What It Is
Deciding what to focus on is half the battle. Social events Stretch-Armstrong me. I should be at the dining table with everyone. I…
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Dear Journal,
I’m 43. That number seems big, small, and just right. I’m in pajama bottoms at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday. That has a…
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Gonna Make You Sweat
You’ve walked in on me mid-conversation with myself. If you don’t mind, take a seat—I’ll be right with you. Why is it that…
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A Comfort-Obsessed Society
Efficiency is the operating premise for the virus in the show Pluribus we’re watching on Apple TV. It’s fascinating to see how their…
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Regulars at Inner AA
All the different parts of me—Perfectionist, Competitive, Obsessive, Paranoid—show up like regulars bursting through the glass doors, late for the 7:00 AA meeting.…
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Reading the Room
Seated in Woodland Coffee Roasters and Café, the chill of the air conditioning has Evelyn huddled against her dad while they stand in…
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Simply Spinning Globes
Frank Sinatra, Journey, and CCR’s Cosmo’s Factory vinyl records took a spin mid-morning today. I must have the earth on the brain. With…
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Domestic Olympics
With 45 minutes left until my noon session, I talk aloud to myself. “Ok, if we take ten minutes on each room—kitchen, living,…
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Unremarkable Presents
I’m wondering if the Remarkable 2 digital notepad is the perfect Christmas gift for me. Plusses: it would be my all-in-one writing spot,…
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Doggedly In My Own Corner
That last one—the relationship with myself—matters the most. And it’s my ambiguity about how to do that that leaves me susceptible to disconnection.…
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Under the Weather
There’s pressure behind my eyes. Heavy, pulsing on either side of my eyebrows. This sickness hit me from behind—midnight bedtime: healthy. One hour…
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Autopsy of the Self (Book Part 37)
Previous I knew I would not allow it to happen again. With just the right internal key, something in me had finally Rubik’s-cubed…
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Sabattical
I baked a three-tiered confetti cake from scratch for Evelyn’s family birthday party tomorrow. And because I’m the chef and lick everything, I…
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The Need For Love
I’ve become too much like a stenographer in my writing. I bore myself. “I did X,” I write Y. In math lingo, it’s…
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Setting the Stage: A Poem
The slip of a toe from the pedal, the momentum lost—bodies pushed forward, then backward into their padded rests. It’s this ebb and…
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Overcooked Parenting
Evelyn took the video game controller out of my hands and replaced it with her own.“We’re swapping, that way you can’t yell at…
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Freezing Burglar Tracks
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s opening credits are running in the background—or maybe it’s this writing that will get buried behind the…
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Unbearable Heaviness
In 1998, if you’d told me I’d point my phone’s camera at the TV to “log in,” I would’ve asked if you also…
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The Gentle Leash of Love
With a purple, tear-shaped pick pinched between my thumb and the outer middle knuckle of my pointer finger, I strum. My shoulder and…
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We Be Jammin’
Moving an image, video, or text an inch to the left, right, up, or down—repeated a thousand times—is the biggest time suck, and…
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Tears On My Pillow
A heart-pounding headache and a little Love Is Blind have kept me from writing.Actually, I have kept me from writing. I thought if…
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Space Jammin’ Season
It’s settled. Instead of plopping my butt down and filling cupped hands to the brim with acorn clusters, I’m buying a—wait. I watched…
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The Sweetness of Not Knowing Better
I thrust my hand into my pocket—into my cheetah-print, thick and soft sweater with large hanging front pockets like Grandpa’s robe. It felt…
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Seeing Saturn Clearly
Unfortunately, I cared about being cool. Calvin Klein and Doc Martens swaggered their denims and waffle-shaped soles across the maroon-and-yellow-speckled floors of my…
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Shattering A Illusion (Book Part 36)
Previous I’m often assaulted by my own physiology. The external world is my puppet master — its thick, hairy hand pulling at my…
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Falling Into Fall
Anna, Lori, Melissa, and I met at noon at Fogata’s Street Tacos for book club. Since I’d chosen The Godfather, I also got…
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Bunkering For Fall
I’m picking up my crystal ball, looking at a past moment, and my body’s showing the score. A quickness in my chest, the…
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Supernatural Design
When there’s no one else around, I perform supernatural acts. Never when they’re watching—always right after their head turns. Earlier, I tipped the…
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Hulk Hoganing Mayonnaise
It happened. I lost my Enter key. For months, it hung on by a teensy hinge that, multiple times a day, I had…
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Realizing the Real
In noticing countries confused with cities and cities confused with America, I knew it was time to step in and help Evelyn with…
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Starter Underwold
I’m as close to being a drug dealer as I’ve ever been. At approximately 8:03 p.m. EST, headlights flooded the driveway, and I…
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Stroke By Stroke
My second favorite plant is peeking over the top of my laptop. Two leaves of a mustard green with white-gray spots tremble as…
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Macaroni-Sized Frog Droppings
Standing in front of our paused 65-inch TV, I begin painting a scene for two little girls having a sleepover. The portrait features…
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Parents Do Cry
I analyze my writing chops and determine they’re good. Maybe too good, I think, quickly scanning the first few sentences of Reedsy’s past…
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Before the Habit, There’s an Identity
I’ve read Atomic Habits twice—once in English and once in Spanish. I love it. The author’s ability to break habits (wanted or unwanted)…
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The Entry Point
This is the second part to my writing contest entry. If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, start there. Thanks! There’s a sauna-like breath…
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It Could Just Be The Wind
At the tail end of my to-do someday list is to enter writing contests. Not today, and likely not tomorrow, but someday. The…
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The Spell Caster’s Final Dance
To squeak open that door again, I pull back. It’s cool, and iron routed in a bow-like curvature—too impressive, too stately for a…
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Staying in the Game
The Mariners are one game away from the World Series. And here we are in the second inning: Logan Gilbert is shaky, the…
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The Space Between Being Seen and Feeling Selfish
I met Paul in graduate school when he was overworked and burned out at Microsoft. Now, years after his retirement, he’s flown to…
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The Ride to You
Thieves and vandals don’t exist in Middle Georgia. On the corner of N. Dugger Avenue and W. Cruselle Street sits Bob’s, its sign…
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Focusing Expectations
The binoculars—double the size of a normal pair—sit lying on the entryway bench. Brought outside yesterday after a “Is that a deer?” moment…
Read on!The Windshield and the Bug
I don’t like my writing tonight. It feels stale, like I’ve said the same thing too many times. I can feel myself pressing…
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Directing It Just So
Negotiating which pot to transplant the Dieffenbachia cutting into was taking too long, so Paula and I abandoned it and headed inside to…
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A Little Bit of Monica
I couldn’t help myself—the rote “The client …” fumbled off my fingers without thought. Those therapeutic progress notes must be subconsciously tapping me…
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The Ride I’m On
We’re on a three-lane highway—Dave driving, Evelyn racing cars on her tablet, and me in the passenger seat. An army-green Corvette, followed by…
Read on!Calling it In
There once was a man from Nantucket. Just kidding, there wasn’t. I’m calling it an early one, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Love,…
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A Memory Made Sky
I send my mind on a sabbatical, open its bank, and browse the files. I pick up this one every few months—it’s of…
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Except This
In my back pocket, I have a ripcord—a one-way pass to dialing it in. To slack, to slap hands and say, “Bruh,” before…
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All Out, All the Time
I’m seated on the couch, pace the kitchen, take cups of water to Evelyn and her friend at the swingset, and grind beans…
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The Pleaser’s Rebellion: Writing with Vigor
Taking it easy on the page—like coasting in the final thirty feet of a roller coaster track—when writing is no longer a behavior…
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The Web of Belongingness
From my front porch coffee spot, I can hear more than see the construction workers’ antics over at Keith’s. A scream resembling Tarzan’s…
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A Mediocre Life
Is that the same lady with a baby caught on camera at the Mariners’ game last night? I ask myself this about the…
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Finding the Sweet Spot
“Why do you have to write?” Evelyn asks, trying to understand what punishment might befall me if I don’t. For her, “have to”…
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Our Eight-Legged Roomie
I dug up a four-inch high sassafras plant from the edge of our yard. Anyone with the app Seek can basically be a…
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Concrete Calm
I’m reaching a deeper sense of peace. It’s like slipping farther beneath the surface of water—colder, darker, a chill wrapping around you. There’s…
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Community Theatre Obsesser
“Just not front and center” — that was Dave’s only request about his seat for the upcoming Addams Family show. We’d already been…
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Class Dismissed
I play mental tricks in my head in Spanish. It’s fun. Like wandering a corn maze, or stepping into one of those wind…
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Alright, Alright, Alright
What’s funny is, I used to not write. I loved it, but didn’t do it. I’d go months thinking about it—like a lover…
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There is a Season
Plants are fun. “Did you see this guy’s new growth?” I ask, holding up an asparagus-like stalk from a plant a friend gifted…
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Fully Oxygenating
Part of my work as a counselor, but also in life is knowing the line between being swept up in my own emotions…
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Conveyor Belt Pile-Up
Watching Angels in the Outfield tonight sent my nostalgia meter soaring—the stadiums, the cars, the crocheted quilts and tweed rocking chairs of the…
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Finding My Muse
At bedtime, using the Google speaker in her bedroom, Evelyn broadcasts into the house. From the living room, I hear the chime, then…
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Being a Big, Big Girl
Anyone posting political opinions or memes is getting a 30-day snooze on Facebook. I’m over it. The reactionary scroll-read-react routine doesn’t work for…
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Releasing With Swift Kicks
Social media is a joke — a wildfire of chaos that toxifies people’s hearts and minds. It’s too much. And yet it’s digested,…
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Crashing Into the Sun
Our mail lady putters down the country road, both windows rolled down, cigarette dangling from her fingers, voice booming over Bluetooth. She’s always…
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It’s All Gravy, Baby
I’m hesitant to say I’m in love with my life. I might jinx it. But I am. From the rocky path that doubles…
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Center of the Circle
A handful of frozen blueberries, miniature Halloween gummy bears, and Hershey’s chocolates—my evening sweet tooth satisfied—I can kick back and watch my first-place…
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My Mini Grand Canyon
I can get singularly focused, eyes on the prize, and relationally, it might come off bullheaded. The bullseye rarely is all I see,…
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Getting Into the Spirit
You know that clean, chiseled, aesthetically perfected feeling of a fresh haircut? Or the just-for-you fit of a brand-new piece of clothing—tags still…
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Spidey Senses
I’m debriefing with myself. Sitting in quiet curiosity, wondering what the hell built the bedrock of insecurity and self-doubt I’ve been standing on.…
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Saddle Sore and Spellbound
My left butt cheek—the spot right between the upper thigh and that crease—is sore. The sensation is somewhere between a rug burn, an…
Read on!An Artist’s Way
A cross-country phone call with my fave gal pal Kristen had me recalibrated in under an hour. She’s got the magic touch. With…
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Burrowing Myself Below
I’m all over the place. One minute I’m unhappily listening to the buzz of a tree-ripping machine on the neighboring property; the next…
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The Deepening Lagoon
I’ve been sinking deeper into my life. Like a cozy set of pajamas you stay in a few extra hours on a Saturday,…
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The Spacious Soul
Hi All, I’d like to use my writing time for reflection. To be with myself. To lean back, close my eyes or keep…
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Going On 40 
I love your writing.
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Geez, Chuck. I’m blushing.
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abortion…it takes a very courageous woman to admit those two difficult decisions. I could not be any more proud of you other than I know your Mom would have been. we all make mistakes, and should’nt have to pay for them with our lives and futures. Evelyn is the luckiest, to have you as her Mom,someone who was ready to love her💖
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Thank you Kim. Your words mean a lot to me.
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