Hey Noodle

I have a great idea!

Let's take some really blurry pictures of you all cute

in your red, white, and blue...

and you can hold your little American Flag -

 and yes, your cupcake...

and we'll post the photo for Naynay's Memorial Day post. 

All you have to do is stand still,

wave your little flag,

and give me a big smile!

Yeah...maybe next year ;)





Happy Tuesday!

Memorial Day

Thank you, LORD, for my loved ones who have fought overseas on our behalf, and returned home to us safe and healthy and strong.

Thank you, LORD, for the many too many who fought and died for my safety, and security, and freedom.

Thank you, LORD, for the families of those who have served our country with honor and courage... husbands and wives, and sons and daughters who have sacrificed more than I will ever know in ways I cannot fathom.

Happy Memorial Day

(A Thousand Gifts #554-557)

Five Minute Friday: On Forgetting

Ready, set...GO!


Memory is a fascinating subject to me, maybe because mine is lousy.  Most of my yesterdays are foggy and sometimes my earlier this mornings are a little on the fuzzy side.

But there are random times that I can recall with startling clarity, and it is inexplicable to me why some memories stick like glue and some breath-takingly lovely times seem to fade away into obscurity.

However, over time I have come to realize that those wonderful sunny days aren't really gone at all.


They've just sorta melded together into a wonderful kaleidoscope of color and music and life.  


I wonder...if I had absolute recall would I ever be able to move forward?  Could I bear to let go of my children if at this very moment my heart and mind could fully smell their little six-year-old heads, or feel their hands tucked inside mine?

Or (yikes!) would it be any easier to crawl out of bed now than it was back then when I feared life would never look happy again?

I doubt it.  I suspect, whether contemplating the glorious or the miserable, I would be completely stuck in what already was.


God is so wonderful in giving us beauty in ways that are healthy and good.



So although I may have forgotten many most of the million different precious moments that are the sum parts of my life, I haven't forgotten my life.

I haven't forgotten for one minute the warmth, the laughs, the prayers....the love.


I haven't forgotten the important things at all.



{Stop}




Happy Friday!

Thanks For The Reminder, Audrey

So ya know how sometimes you think your out-of-sortsiness will be brief and transient so you blithely make assurances of THE HAPPY nature?

Well.  What's a girl to do when 24 hours goes by and she is still kinda tired and moody and at least 42% cranky - AND she has nothing to say? 

On a normal day I'm thinking she would skip all things bloggy-writing for another day or three and save her friends the trouble of having to tell her that she's  bringing everybody down with her sad, little, pitiful attitude.  However, this particular girl (it's ME, y'all!) had to go and specifically say she would be here and bringing THE HAPPY this morning.  So I fear my absence today would imply I told you an untruth.

Untruths are very not cool.


So here's a little video Katie took of Audrey last month.  I personally think it's a guaranteed happy-maker. 



(Jermy I apologize for putting you on the worldwideweb again sans shirt.  I guess it's just the risk you take when your daughter is so stinkin' cute.  Thanks for not suing me or getting mad at me or whatever it is that less kind sons-in-law might do ;)








Happy Thursday!

A Touch of the Exasperated

So before I even get started I think I should warn you that I'm feeling a little all over the place today.  It's been a while since we went a-rambling together, and I'm sorry that today has to be the day.  This is unfortunate timing because I have no idea where all the alleged witty banter has gone.  Therefore, this might be a bumpy ride.

I might feel a little or a lot like the child in the photo to my right. 

But I'm not nearly as cute.

(Isn't she just PRECIOUS??)


So I need to know, is it rude or unkind or maybe even a little obnoxious to be completely ticked off at a huge corporation who has never heard of you?  If it is, then I guess it's just too bad, because Google and I are officially on the outs, and if they don't shape up in the very near future then we're breaking up.  And I'm not even kidding.

After The Great Blogger Disaster of 2011, a mere couple of weeks ago, I had high hopes that things were looking up, and I'm not gonna lie to ya - I was teetering on the edge even then.  I do not enjoy technological misery.  Please don't tell anyone but I actually started up a new bloggy address over at WP because I was so aggravated, but doggone it, I had just settled on my new look and couldn't bear the thoughts of yet another change.  WP has a really nice look, kind've clean and sharp and what-not, but their templates seem BOR-ING to me.  And not nearly as cozy.  Although I do like the commenting system.  I think. 

Decisiveness is not one of my spiritual gifts.

And that brings me to my current problem.  For some obscure reason known only to Google I can't seem to use my account to comment on my own - or anyone else's for that matter - blog.  This is particularly odd because I have to use the same account information to access my blog in the first place.  I'm thisclose to LOSING MY MIND. 

I have wasted hours and minutes of my life on sheer foolishness.

(I completely understand that this sounds embarrassingly superficial and unimportant, but have you ever suffered from a technical glitch?  It can bring on shades of insanity you never wanted to know on a personal basis.)

* * Breaking News * *  It has come to my attention that Blogger/Google has indeed been experiencing technical difficulties again, and it is not my fault in any way whatsoever.  This begs the question...why in the name of all things reasonable can they not just SAY that at the beginning of the issue instead of 12 hours later when my head  hurts from all the against-the-wall banging?  I could have taken a nap or had a Kit-Kat bar.

And speaking of headaches, I actually have an unpleasant pain in my head, and I just wanna know... Does the mere process of aging bring on the routine headaches that make a body want to take many Excedrin and go foraging for caffeine?  

I would love to blame this on my estranged buddy Google, but the head pain has been visiting for a while now.   If it is, in fact, a grandma thing that cannot be avoided...Well, I'm truly disheartened. 


Between that and winterchubby I've not been a fan of the aging this last year. 


Just between you and me, I keep thinking I'll have some kind of life-turnaround and end up running marathons and becoming adorable and what-not, thus landing me in an inspiring Lifetime movie, but I fear the previous 45 years indicate a pattern in my basic life-y preferences that is unlikely to be broken. 

After all, can someone really learn to love running the 5K and sweating a lot when she has spent all 45 years of her life strongly disliking the word exercise? 

Probably not.

With my sincerest hope that the rest of your day is cranky-free,


p.s.  The pictures have little to do with the above whining and complaining.  It is my hope that gazing upon those little cherubs will make your visit today a bit more pleasant.

p.s.s.  The questions above were not necessarily rhetorical.  I welcome any and all helpful input. 

p.s.s.s.  Just so's ya know, tomorrow's as-yet unwritten post is destined to be once again all about THE HAPPY.

Somebody Really Liked the Choo-Choo Trains

 

 ...and I think Audrey did too ;)

 Happy Tuesday!

Smooth Days and Sweet Dreams

smooth workdays all in a row

birthday celebrations, and seeing friends not seen in a while

counting the days...and savoring the minutes

absolute certainty

rearranged furniture and fresh perspective

warm, sudsy dishwater

popcorn and chocolate-covered raisins with my buddy

encouraging comments, and twitter banter,

and reading the heart stories of new friends 

warm greetings from strangers as I enter the church

and that instant kinship we feel

the scent of warm cinnamon while the cookies bake

the way the curtains flutter with the windows open,

and the quick temperature drop when the storm comes,

and the thunder always on the outside

good news in the middle of a difficult week

that sweet woman's "you could be SISters!"

dreaming sweet dreams while I'm wide awake

meeting kari's friends, putting faces with the names, and talking silly to their baby girl, and knowing I sound goofy and not caring

that yummy feeling when the warm sun is slowly soaking into my bones and I feel warm all the way through, but I'm not quite too warm yet

rejoicing with that sweet little boy with the freckles and the cowlick and the shy handshake as he publicly states that he now knows Jesus...and his little smile when my daughter tells him that I think he's cute

the honeysuckle assaulting my senses, sending me to another time...

and the sprig I snapped free and brought home

brief chats with sweet older neighbors

taking notice of the details

trusting God for the unseen

(A Thousand Gifts #522-553)

Happy Monday!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

I am so grateful that God gave you to our family

I always wanted a goofy son.

 You have grown from the sweet, sincere boy who stole his way into my heart...into a wonderful man that I'm proud to call my son :)









Thank you for loving us all so well.

...and thank you for taking

most excellent care of my baby girl!

We love you!

Five Minute Friday: When Seasons Change

Happy Friday, y'all!  It's that time again :) 

Since I didn't explain last week, I'll remind you again of what this little bloggy experiment is all about.

As implied by the title.  I'm writing for five minutes.

I know, right?  So complicated, HA!

The trick is to stop there and leave all the overthinking that is, well, me, and just...let it go.

This weeks topic?  When Seasons Change


{Start}


When seasons change, the already-done becomes a memory and the could-be become the focus.


Just when I think I can't take another day of the cold, the temperatures start to soar and the sun breaks through...and as I'm reflecting on the sheer misery of the long darkness I realize it's seven o'clock in the evening and I can still see "my" mountain in the distance.


And amazingly enough... approximately 10 minutes before I declare I can't stand another minute of the heat, that seems to be when the air begins to turn crisp and the sky turns so clear and brilliantly blue that I can hardly bear the beauty of it all.


Through the years I have found such joy in watching God do that for the inside of me as well.  Just when the long droughts have left me nearly completely parched...the cleansing, healing rain starts to fall.

And when I am certain that I can't cry another tear?  Well.  That's right when the nearly blinding in it's glory sunshine of hope breaks through.

When seasons change, hope breaks through and potential for the anything rises to the surface.


When seasons change, hope breaks through


...and once again I am gifted with the strength - and the want to  - to leap into whatever comes next.

 
{Stop}



Love,


p.s.  Thanks Kari Beth for the lovely picture :)

Four!

Happy Anniversary Jeremy & Katie!

I love you :)

Strawberries (and Family!) in the Park

Where is my Wiwi?


This is all I'm askin'.

There she is!!  Evidently she took too long, or I need a hug, or perhaps a balloon, or possibly a strawberry shortcake.  Hard to say at this point, but I'm awfully cute with my sad face goin' on.

 

Come ON Naynay - let's dance!

I can't EVEN believe yet another careless

someone let their balloon get lost. 

OH THE HUMANITY!

Dakota with Shayne

Could Elijah be any cuter even if he tried?? 

(The  answer is nope!)

Owo is pooped and fatigued and tired :)

Happy Strawberry Season, y'all!