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Welcome to INSPIRATION STATION.Your go-to place for inspiration. This website is a compilation of anything and everything; articles, quotations, poetry, art, photography, music and anything that makes your heart happy and inspires you! It's also a place of emotional healing. There are no rules! It's a place for motivation,creativity, and of course, joy.

I'm Joy Hafford (aka Rutschman). I started a website, “Joy and Inspiration” two decades ago with a desire to build a personal space to explore my creativity and bring something positive to the world. I had no idea what I was doing in the technical aspects of web building. The result was an online journal and file cabinet for anything that struck my fancy. Eventually without the technical know-how, credentials or a clear sense of direction and purpose, I unpublished it. It went into the abyss of the world-wide-web, existing somewhere, but for what purpose?

A few years older now I find my creativity is as elusive as the dismantled website. I have decided that therapeutically it is high time to "get back to where I once belonged" so I am reviving my website.The challenge is to make it interactive and better than before, and to instill in it a reason for being. It won't be easy. I'm still technology-challenged and I have no idea where to begin. How about with a new name? Last stop...INSPIRATION STATION!

I will be open 24/7 while under construction and redecorating. Currently much is still as it was when I shut it down. My goal is improvement! I will start the Blog I attempted to get going in 2013 when I left my heart (and inspiration) in Arizona. I hope you will follow my blog,I Do Lodi, the same spelled forward or backward. I love that! The blog will be my take on life in sunny California.

I hope you will write about, photograph or draw inspiring things you'd like to share on this site or email comments to haffordjoy1@gmail.com. Come help me spread the love at INSPIRATION STATION.

drawing by Timmy Hooks

TO FORMER FRIENDS OF "JOY AND INSPIRATION" WEBSITE AND NEW FRIENDS WHO WANT TO COME ALONG FOR THE JOY RIDE...

So what have I been up to since taking down the site?

After more than 35 years in the work force, I retired from my 8 - 5 with the State of Arizona in 2009 and moved with my husband to live out our dream of a simple life in the mountains. I was simultaneously focused on my husband's health problems. We made numerous trips back and forth from the mountains to the now infamous Phoenix Veterans Hospital in the Valley of the Sun. (That's a story for another day!)

In retirement, I began making pine cone wreaths from the numerous pine cones that covered our yard (I had never been "crafty" in my life). When they ran out, Richard and I would walk down our dirt road through the forest with big garbage bags collecting more.

I joined the local Arts & Crafts Guild displaying my wreaths and doing festival planning. I volunteered for the "Guild Cookbook Planning Committee" (a fundraising venture) soon becoming newsletter editor, Secretary, Vice President, and the PR/Media Advertising person. This propelled me into becoming an Events Columnist for an award winning newspaper serving the Arizona Rim Country, "The Payson Roundup".

I loved doing my weekly column "Pine/Strawberry Happenings". There was always somewhere to go and wonderful people to interact with. With my picture in the paper there was facial recognition in the local community. Richard would accompany me on occasion and jokingly referred to himself as "Joy's Husband". Life does not get any better! We were living the life we had dreamed of that I had not thought possible. We lived in the magnificent Arizona Rim Country; the closest place to Heaven on earth. What had taken us so long to get there?

I finally had time to write; freelance, guest blogs and my own column. Why did I not pursue my love for journalism years earlier? Surely I could do more creative writing other than registering and profiling sex offenders for the ACIC/NCIC. When I first started my column and my editor introduced me to the award winning, incomparable news reporters at the "Roundup", several questioned if I would prefer covering the local "sex offender beat". No! No! No! I wanted to write happy news...and that's what I did!

This dream life abruptly ended when my husband slipped on the ice and broke his hip in January 2013. He was in a weakened state in a coma fighting a battle with "respirator induced" pneumonia and the odds were not in his favor. "His body is really beaten up", the doctor said gently, attempting to prepare me for the inevitable. I was not giving up and NEITHER WERE THEY, I expressed forcefully. I fought by my husbands side convinced that his Marine fighting spirit would pull him through, along with God, doctors,family and friends. I stayed with him at the VA Hospital, Veteran's Home and then back to our own home, becoming a full time caregiver through the ups and downs and uncertainty of recovery and rehabilitation.

In November, life took another unanticipated turn when we moved to Lodi, California. We now live just a few blocks from my sister, Audrey (aka Rock on by Audi), in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley and wine-grape capital of the world; home of the Lodi Grape Festival, creator of A & W Root Beer, and magnificent Lodi Lake and Park.

The sudden, dramatic move left us feeling like strangers in a strange land and hopelessly homesick for the mountains and the people we had grown to love. I think I missed my column the most, and could find no words left to write in my new surroundings.

It's been 3 years now, and the good news is Richard, although faced with many health issues as a disabled veteran, made it through the uncertainty of his broken hip. After going down to 105 pounds, he's up to 140, 5 pounds above his normal weight! Our son, Michael, and my brother, Dan (aka Danamo) moved out from Arizona to be with us. I get to hang out with my sister and have met great new people. As for amazing daughter, Krisy, she has moved on from her Music teaching job in Flagstaff, AZ to the Madison, WI area to pursue her Masters degree. In the interim, while gaining residency, she is Music Director for a grade school, middle school and high school in Cottage Grove, WI. In other words, she is a Super Hero! We miss her greatly but are so proud of her fearless determination and extraordinary accomplishments.

Lodi is starting to feel like home. I had to quit comparing it to Pine;nothing compares to Pine! I will never look outside and see the Pine trees or the first flake of snow. But Fall has arrived, the most beautiful time in Lodi. Our home is comfy and cozy. I'm starting to feel at peace here. After all, peace does not come from where you live, it comes from your heart and is a state of mind.

Now it's time to get back to my little home on the web. Welcome to Open House at INSPIRATION STATION. I'm happy you're here.