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blogging, immigration, relationships, Uncategorized, wellness, women's, writing

Frail times

July 18, 2016 emmapalova 1 Comment

Small frail things matter

“Do small things with great love.”

Mother Teresa

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I have just found out that small things matter, that destiny exists and that life is frail.

Three times in life I had close calls when death was reaching for me with her long arms.

Once, I almost drowned even though I am an apt swimmer, not like Michael Phelps but close. Just joking. I feel lucky when I can swim a 50-meter pool once and not the butterfly style.

The second time I almost got killed in a car driving on a rural route from one small town to another small town in northern Michigan.

Ella by her computer station in her girl's room. — Ella’s time in America.

The third time I fell down straight on my face due to low blood pressure, heat and dizziness from medication at the height of summer on July 14th.

A one-night stay at the Metro Hospital on M-6 cost us $10,000. My husband Ludek also spent one night at what we call “Hotel 6” with heart problems. That also cost us $10,000.

We came out of there alive unlike our neighbor Ted aka “Teddy Bear” who never made it out of “Hotel 6” after a 2-year struggle with leukemia.

“At least he lived it up,” said my daughter-in-law Maranda Palova.

No matter what you call it whether living it up, bucket list or living your way because you think you’re going to die soon, you can’t escape destiny.

Ella Chavent with one of the teachers at St. Pat's. — Ella Chavent with one of the volunteers at St. Pat’s.

And yes life is frail at all its stages.

I am breathing again freely with new wisdom. I found out why I didn’t die in any of those close calls.

It’s my French granddaughter Ella Chavent, 5. She will turn six in September. Ella is staying with us for the summer. At first I had butterflies in my stomach. I worried about this international experiment not knowing where it will take us. We didn’t know Ella that well because we’ve seen her in six years only six times.

Ella’s parents left for France last Friday taking along her two-year old brother Sam.

“Did Sam leave?” she asked me.

“No, he’s living under the roof in the attic,” I said seriously but laughing out loud afterwards.

And we’ve played that joke ever since. Ella keeps telling everyone that her brother lives in the attic. That simple joke broke the ice when Ella started crying for her mami after coming home from St. Pat’s summer school.

Our international family clan on July 4th under the pergola.

Normally, I hate Mondays but this time I didn’t. I took Ella to school in the morning. She carried her tart cherry pie for her friends. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have made that cherry pie. I would normally not go to St. Pat’s Church. I would just lounge around all Sunday morning.

But, with Ella going to a catholic school, I felt compelled to go to church. Ella wouldn’t go either, but she wanted to see her friends from school.

After dropping her off this morning, I felt an urge to drive to Smyrna to see if the work on Whites Bridge replica has started.

Instead, there was a stronger pull to go home. I kept looking around over all my stuff; things that I used to think mattered so much.

At first I wanted to do the laundry, so I went upstairs to pick up Ella’s clothes. Picking up stuff off the floor in what was my daughter’s room in the nineties, I realized there’s a greater cause than just dirty laundry.

Without taking down Emma’s posters from the white walls, I started re-doing the room Ella style. I cleared the shelves for her souvenirs from the Ionia Free Fair and from Picnic Pops fireworks and concert, that she enjoyed so much over the weekend.

In the corner of the room, I created a work station for her. Our neighbor Catherine Haefner gave Ella a “computer” with books and a tape. Ella tested it out at the open house for Katie Haefner.

Then I went to the balcony to water the flower boxes. I looked at Ella’s little garden made inside a cut off milk jar. Her chicks and hens started already growing.

Next to Ella’s miniature garden is a bigger black square pot with mums. I forgot to water them during the June heat. So, the flowers died. I wanted to pull out the plant and throw it out. Something wouldn’t let me.

I looked closer at the plant after watering it thoroughly for the last three weeks. With all the rain we had, I found new buds coming out on the leafy stems.

To me, the new buds symbolize new blood and a fresh new outlook on life.

There was a reason why I didn’t die in one of those close calls.

Thank you universe.

Note: This story ties into the earlier post “Immersion English” or “International Experiment” found at https://emmapalova.com/2016/07/14/international-experiment/

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/frail

#dailypost #frail

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blogging, psychology, relationships, Uncategorized, writing

Picking up the Pieces

May 13, 2016 emmapalova 2 Comments

The great return to finale

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I am putting back together the pieces of my life like in a shining kaleidoscope. Some call it a comeback.

I am back on the final stretch of the “Greenwich Meridian” (c) memoir. I took a break to establish my Internet blog design company Emma Blogs, LLC. Now that I feel well grounded, I am returning back to the life of a daily writer. I missed it anyway.

The blogging journey took me from a rookie to a lifelong learner. Internet is much like water & wind; it never stands still or like Wall Street; it never sleeps. You can’t abandon it, because it’s like the writing life. It doesn’t let go of you.

Abstract art by Kathleen Mooney inspired by quilting.

Lsvender is good for anxiety and insomnia.

Along that three-year long journey, I’ve met some of the best people in the industry by trial and error, as well as by targeted searching. After spending endless hours on learning the ropes of the blogging business, I sought help. I found Learn to Blog. This group of people is golden. Their support is pivotal in my blogging life.

And I’ve made friends. How can you make friends working all day alone in your writing studio staring at the flashing cursor with an occasional glance at my orchids on the window sill?

Well, you join private and public Facebook groups. I have done that. I am a member of the private Learn to Blog (LTB) and WordPress Support facebook groups. I’ve done both LTB and WordPress challenges. I’ve commented and I got comments back. I’ve gained the most followers on the 30 Day Content Writing Challenge . I established my own writing group “Writers Loop” on facebook based on advise from Soulpreneurs founder Leigh Ann Dickey.

“Facebook pages are old school, groups are the way to go,” she said in a Skype interview.

Some of the major players in the memoir Greenwich Meridian: the Two Sisters, Mom Ella & Aunt Anna, grandma Anna and grandpa Joseph.

One of the best things that has ever happened to me on a blogging challenge was making a lifelong friend and a business partner.

During the 30 Day Content Challenge, a link to a healing site Beautiful Body, Mind and Spirit caught my eye. We were supposed to like and comment five blogs. I liked it and commented on it.

“I’ve always been interested in alternative healing,” I commented.

I e-mailed the owner Nan Raden asking for an interview to feature her as the blogger of the month on EW Emma’s Writings. During the first Skype call, we immediately clicked.

Nan is a natural healer and I suffer by nature. We compliment each other. She healed my inability to take action. She healed me emotionally and physically to a distance of 1,884.90 miles between Grand Rapids, MI and Tucson, AZ.

Now, we’re getting ready to webcast our show on Google hangouts on air. I will announce the name shortly. Stay tuned for a story and a video.

Other than the blogging challenges, the most productive in gaining followers were posts relevant to the current events. These included: “Alpenhorns at the Octoberfest in Grand Rapids,” ” Thoughts on Fear in the Wake of Paris Attacks” posted during the 30 Day Content Challenge, “Evil Choices” after a SuperTuesday primary ,”Happy Mother’s Day” and most recently “Cannes Film Festival 2016.”

Speaking about timing. My former editor and friend Jeanne Boss used to say, “Timing is everything.” The 30 Day Content Challenge started before Thanksgiving. I scrambled to get through it around the holidays. Sometimes I had to play catch up writing up to five posts one day.

I’ve learned a lot and I’ve diversified in the blogosphere. I’ve joined SheKnows and BlogHer platforms that have merged since. I am still carving out my own path. I am contemplating Blogspot, but I want to stay focused on the memoir.

Posts about relationships like the “Two Sisters” about the animosity between my mother Ella and her sister Anna attracted more followers. The relationship that went raw over immigration is a big part of the memoir.

“They never mended not even now standing at the gate to heaven or hell,” I write in the book.

I would also like to highlight the mini-series “Eyeology with Dr. Verdier” about my cataract ordeal two years ago. The IW Inspiring Women was a joy to write because I met all these interesting women who continue to inspire and motivate me to this day. It is a living ongoing series with new encounters every day.

I found out that the best writing comes from the heart and without a narrow purpose. Big tears rolled down my cheeks penning the most emotional posts like “It took a lifetime to get to this moment,” based on a prompt from the 30 Day Challenge.

It took me a lifetime to get this moment to write this post and to complete the memoir.

Thank you all for your ongoing support.

The featured image is by Nan Raden.

Links to mentioned stories:

Mom Ella & Aunt Anna (Two Sisters)

Mom Ella & aunt Anna

It took a lifetime to get to this moment (30 Day Challenge #28)

30 Day Blogging Challenge #28

Thoughts on Fear in the Wake of Paris Attacks (30 Day Challenge #3)

30 Day Bloggigng Challenge #3

Evil Choices

Evil choices

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day

Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival 2016

Alpenhorns video from Octoberfest in Grand Rapids

Watch “Alphorns at Grand Rapids Octoberfest 2015” on YouTube

Series

IW Inspiring Women (Hiker Babe walks 4,600 miles in memory of her daughter)

IW-Hiker babe walks 4,600 miles in memory of daughter

New Eyes with Dr. Verdier

New eyes with Dr. Verdier

Companies mentioned in the article:

Emma Blogs, LLC

http://emmablogsllc.wordpress.com

Beautiful body, mind and spirit

beautifulmindbodyspirit.com

Learn to Blog

http://www.learntoblog.com

Soulpreneurs

http://soulpreneurs.co

Beautiful body, mind and spirit

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blogging, business, celebration, Uncategorized, WordPress, writing

3rd WordPress anniversary

January 14, 2016 emmapalova 1 Comment

Celebrating three years with WordPress

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- On this day three years ago, I boarded the WordPress flight 101 to destination unknown.

I came across WordPress just by pure coincidence as I was doing research for my memoir “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga.

The Hawkins Chamber site had a WP like box. In order to like it, I had to get on the platform. So, I did because I needed Internet presence anyways according to the agents whom I approached about the book.

Inspiration: the spiral staircase at the Dali in St. Petersburg, FL

It was an easy pick compared to the other complex blog/web building sites. Plus it was free.

Looking back at those three years, there were definite milestones when I wanted to just plain quit without explaining anything to anyone. There was this strange voice that kept whispering into my ear, “Give it up, you can’t do it. Go back to the store.”

I actually even attempted going back to the store where I worked in the nineties, but the manager discouraged me.

“You can do better,” he said. “Keep trying what you’re doing. You will master it.”

Initially, there is a steep learning curve on WordPress, just like with anything new. I compare to a child learning to walk. All those bumps and falls and getting up, crawling along the walls for support, and then suddenly a bang. The child stands up and takes his or her first steps.

I spent hours behind the computer with tutorials and the support team as my wall. I was dealing with an avalanche of information trying to sort through it all.

“Why don’t you let someone else do it for you?” asked my husband Ludek shaking his head when he saw me crunching my teeth and pulling my hair out.

“Like who,” I said. “And mainly where am I going to get the money to pay a person for a decent job?”

No, answer.

My persistence prevailed. I finally had the first post ready “About” on Jan. 14^thwith a Jan. 15^th date.

The WP team welcomed me along with other newcomers into the community graciously with the slogan, “Thanks for flying with Word Press.” I still didn’t know what to expect just like when you take off on a plane for a long journey across the ocean.

As time ticked away, more things became clear. Having a traditional publishing background with knowledge of QuarkXPress and InDesign, the real design on word press became easier.

I have to say that I never had serious trouble coming up with copy. And as serious, I mean not being able to pound out a story or a post every day. Traditional newspaper journalism was a lot like an army boot camp.

“A story and a photo a day will keep the editor away,” we used to say at the Ionia Sentinel-Standard newsroom.

Easier said than done and that goes for both worlds; ink and the grid.

I find it helpful to have the right mindset even before I get out of bed. The right mindset was, is and always will be that, “Content is the king.”

I always think about that before I sit behind the screen and as I look at the Stephen King calendars filed in my library, year after year, until they finally stopped publishing them in 2014.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that things can only get better,” wrote King.

I agree. Whenever I have trouble coming up with ideas or writing, I start procrastinating. To avoid procrastinating further, I go for a ride, take a walk, and swim a few laps if I am lucky enough to find a pool or dip myself in a hot tub.

Once I physically exert the inner frustration, the writer in me is reborn. I shake everything off and step into a new world of creation. The destination remains unknown.

To be continued with “Milestones” and “If I could turn back time.”

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blogging, content writing, immigration, Uncategorized, WordPress, writing

If I Could Turn Back Time

January 12, 2016 emmapalova Leave a comment

Turning back time

I am going to work on this daily prompt by Daily Post because it is so close to my heart especially at a time when I am starting the second half of my memoir “Greenwich Meridian” about the family immigration saga.

Stay tuned for the full story as I develop it to fruition.

The first years of immigration in North America. Pictured are Ludek, Emma and Jakub P. on the shores of St. Lawrence River in Gaspesie, Canada.

If you could return to the past to relive a part of your life, either to experience the wonderful bits again, or to do something over, which part of you life would you return to? Why?

Source: If I Could Turn Back Time

blogging, coaching, content writing, psychology, Uncategorized, writing

Goal 2016

January 8, 2016 emmapalova 2 Comments

Main goal in 2016 targets the elusive reader

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- If we only knew what people really like, the creative business would be much less trickier. It’s not just that we as creators don’t know, but sometimes the receiving side doesn’t know either.

I found out this from my experience while trying to select a movie to stream from YouTube. My husband and I go through hundreds of movie selections both in English and in Czech. Quite often we end up not knowing what we want, and we switch lazily back on the TV programming to do the picking for us. It’s easier than making up our own minds.

Thai wind 1 by Kacey Cornwell, Art Prize entry

But, taste is also a matter of the moment that keeps constantly changing. On the other hand there are nights, when I immediately know what I want to see even before turning on the screen. Luckily, we usually agree on the choice.

That brings me to my major goal for 2016 and that is to write what people like to read.

“What is it?” I ask. “Does it mean that I am catering to a trend?”

Not, necessarily. Gauging what people like and don’t like is important just like in the food industry. Recently, I found out that the frozen Ristorante pizza is not as good as DiGiorno. They look the same, they cost the same, but they don’t taste the same. Ristorante is missing something. What is it? It’s like with a good story or a bad story. What is missing and why is it bad?

Finding that missing ingredient is in the psychology or knowledge of your character and your reader. They have to match up. We need a perfect match.

But, writing isn’t just point-blank, let’s say, for the firearm hunter of deer but for the entire hunting category. Just like the pizza example appeals to a wide group of people, if not to most. But remember that both are frozen.

When I think of writing to a certain interest or maybe a trend, I always think of an entire group or a segment of population.

“Okay, who is going to read my next short story, “270 Degrees to Beach Pines?”

It could be the largest segment of American population. That is the baby boomers. The short story is about aging and what a tragic comedy it is; watching it, living it and trying to cheat it. Totally, Shakespearean or Marquez style. It will be humoresque and very light, almost as light as the “Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Kundera.

It should feel like a feather in the wind, like a butterfly’s kiss as it slowly dissipates into thin air.

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blogging, business, psychology, Uncategorized

Top views in 2015

January 6, 2016 emmapalova 1 Comment

Posts with human appeal attract the most interest

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I’ve noticed a pattern of interest in different stories over the years. There is a good old journalistic saying, “If it bleeds it leads.” That goes for traditional media.

That is true for news stories on major TV networks and in newspapers. People are hungry for crime, tragedy and its impact. They’re glad that it didn’t happen to them. It’s psychology at its best.

Second comes in weather, and glamour takes the third place. Sometimes these two are interchangeable.

The digital world is different, where technology posts take the first followed by everything that is connected to IT. Then comes everything else.

In my own little world of EW Emma’s Writings, this is how my posts fared from bottom to top on a scale of 5 to 1.

5- Alphorns at the Grand Rapids Octoberfest in September 2015. It was a well-rounded German event with Erdinger on tap and schnitzel with potato salad on the menu.

Watch “Alphorns at Grand Rapids Octoberfest 2015” on YouTube

4- The page About local entrepreneurs & artists takes the fourth place. It profiles regional inspiring people from entrepreneurs to staple artists in the West Michigan area.

Indie Authors & Entrepreneurs

3-The Kropf Apple Farming legend. A touching story about an apple farming family spanning four generations while overcoming the big Chinese apple juice dumping crisis in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Kropf apple farming legend

2- The home page/archives takes a second place. People like checking this one out periodically. That’s why periodic posting is important. It’s a very popular station.

http://emmapalova.com

And finally drum roll..

1-Top post with 113 views on Sept. 28 about local entrepreneur Nancy DeBoer. The post about the owner of Station Salon, a popular beauty shop in Lowell, won out of 160 posts in 2015.

IW Station Salon

The above ranking of top posts shows me that human interest stories have the most views.

It warms my heart because I came to the same conclusion in print media after years of experience. On a long term basis, not at a particular second, people prefer the human over the dead, success over failure, tenacity over weakness, continuity over the beat of the day.

Uncategorized

Writer’s Digest competition

May 29, 2015 emmapalova 1 Comment

Writer’s Digest competition deadline is coming up

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI -June 5^th is the deadline for the major annual Writer’s Digest contest. I am entering this year with the following pieces in two different categories. The first one is non-fiction article that deeply touched me, “Hiker Babe walks in memory of daughter.”

This article is about a woman whom I have known for a long time. Her name is Gail Lowe. Lowe is a retired nurse, who has hiked the Appalachian Trail twice and most recently the North Country Trail in memory of her daughter Becka.

Lowe’s only fear remains that she won’t be able to hike anymore because of aging. Becka’s fear before she passed from breast cancer was not to be forgotten. So, her mother immortalized her with the 4,600-mile long hike through seven Midwest states. She got sick on the trail and turned 65.

The second piece I am submitting is fiction based in reality, “Twice into the same river.”

There is a saying that you cannot step twice into the same river, meaning that everything flows with time.

Well, I have. First, in the late eighties when I took care of my grandparents until their death. Then, I left Czech Republic for the USA.

Brother and sister in Reed City, a theme for a short story.

Now, I am facing the same destiny with my brother who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. He can and cannot take care of himself. He refuses to take medication and is very angry most of the time.

I fear that I am not going to be able to handle him. The unknown ahead is so overwhelming that’s why I am writing about it to ease the burden.

I will be stepping twice into the same river, only some 25 years later.

community, WordPress, writing

Three goals

February 3, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Blogging 201. Assignment #1. Setting goals.

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Now that I have already accomplished the first goal of having a company site for Emma Blogs LLC, I can actually spell them out.

At the beginning of 2015 I wrote my goals on a white story board under the title, “Goals 2015.”

First I listed my fiction goals to complete the memoir “Greenwich Meridian” in 2015 for 2016 publication. Second, I posted on the white story board: Write short story for Writer’s Digest contest in May.

Then followed: market fiction, publish fiction and sell screenplay.

Well, one month into the new year I have barely touched any of these, except for some marketing and putting together the short story in my head, before I set out to write it. So, what have I been doing I ask myself?

“Blogging, my friends,” I answer.

So, I flip the page of the white story board to Blogging Goals and go deeper yet into my writing/blogging diary because the goals on the board are more long-term.

And there it is, pure and clean in the diary:

A dam in Czech Republic to me resembles a surge of ideas.

1) Have a company blog/website for Emma Blogs LLC. Well, I can mark this one off. Once I read Michelle’s post on goal setting I just started working on the site. Got it done in three hours, drifting back and forth between themes Radcliffe and Twenty Fifteen. It tells the company story and introduces the staff.

2)Get an E-Newsletter out for February along with creating a mailing list. I started mind work for this in the wee morning hours when I cannot sleep.

3) Hook up with affiliates. I already started with Learn to blog and I need to post their logos. I also want to hook up with PR Web and Wild Technologies.

Goal setting does work. I am a living proof of it. I falter when I don’t set goals.

Thanks Michelle for pushing me forward.

related links: Emma Blogs LLC at http://emmablogsllc.wordpress.com

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travel, wedding, wines

Visiting Uruguay

January 30, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Visiting Uruguay.

advertising, business, celebration, community, travel, WordPress

WordPress anniversary

January 15, 2015 emmapalova Leave a comment

Two years with WordPress

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI- Two years ago, on this day, I published my first post on WordPress. It was my author’s bio that I had later moved into About section. I introduced myself in a story with an author’s photo.

One hundred and ninety-six posts later, I am grateful that I had chosen the WordPress platform. It was a pure coincidence. I wanted to like and comment on the Hawkins Chamber of Commerce in Texas, and I was directed to the press site.

I wanted a blog anyways after Writer’s Digest suggested that every writer should have a blog or a website. At the time I started writing memoir “Greenwich Meridian” and I needed the exposure.

McGregor, Iowa — Rediscovering treasures on the Mississippi River

And I fell in love with WordPress for its finesse, sophistication, the variety of themes and the community in general. I found Rumanian colleagues Valeriu dg Barbu and Cristian Mihai, French photographer redstuffdan and many others, whose work I admire. They inspire me in my writings.

I started learning the ropes. Coming fresh from the print media, it was very different. I must say that I like new things, and this was right up my alley.

The constant challenge of change, new themes, new ways of posting, the speed and the prompts delight me.

I feel like I am being pulled deeper and deeper in. Like today’s prompt in The Daily Post “Connect the Dots,” Open your nearest book to page 82. Take the third full sentence on the page, and work it into a post somehow.

While sitting in a folding rocking chair in front of the wood stove, I reached into the library and grabbed “The People’s Chronology” and the third sentence on page 82 is entertaining in itself. For once I got lucky.

It reads: “Canon of Medicine by the Arab physician Avicenna (Abu Sina) follows the thinking of Aristotle and Galen but is so well written and organized that it will be a major influence on medical thinking for centuries.”

I couldn’t ask for a better prompt.

EW Emma's Writings — EW blog on Gatehouse Media 10 million reader market

Ironically in my Internet discussions, I asked, “Where will the Internet take us?”

Today I realize the real question is, “Where will we take the Internet?”

I took it to the next level. In July, I started my writing and blog design company on WordPress, Emma Blogs LLC. It is a portfolio of 10 blogs that covers a range of topics from health, outdoors, homes to brides and farming suited for advertising, whether affiliate or traditional.

I also write and manage a bilingual blog CJ Aunt Jarmilka’s Desserts in Czech Republic on http://jkarmaskova.wordpress.com

I have great writers like Sarah Harmon who bring their unique style to the blogs, and salesperson Ed Donahue.

EW writer Sarah Harmon in Paris

EW Emma’s Writings also feeds into the Gatehouse Media, a 10 million reader market including the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.

What I like the most about writing on WordPress is that it does have an impact on people and it gets the message out.

Friend Tina Sicialiano Cadwallader asked me when is the book coming out at a Christmas party at the Fallasburg Historical Society.

“We’re going to take a selfie with the book at the Lowell museum,” she laughed.

Last Saturday, I ran into Betsy Davidson, owner of Addorio Technologies, LLC.

“Have you been travelling?” she asked. “I am really enjoying your stories because I don’t get to go to places like that.”

Vizovice, Czech Republic — Vizovice, where old meets new.

Longtime friend Ruth Hall said, “I absolutely love reading your posts.”

Comments and advice on the posts are also very gratifying and informational. Following is a comment by Herbal Weight Loss Remedies & Tips at http://url.darkillusion.us/weightloss748972

“Great articles you post on your blog, I have shared this article on my twitter.”

I find the happiness engineering support team very helpful at times when I pull her from my head.

And as I ask in my story interviews, “What don’t you like about so and so?”

Off the top of my head, I really can’t think of a single thing that would stand out that I don’t like about WordPress. I might think of something later as I toss in the bed in the wee morning hours with my chronic insomnia.

Thank you WordPress for two great years.

Links:

Fallasburg Historical Society

http://www.fallasburg.org

Addorio Technologies, LLC

http://www.addorio.com

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