As I've gotten older and my life has started to make more and more sense, and I'm sensing what my true purpose is, I try so hard not to take simple things for granted and I try more and more to really see and appreciate the beauty in the little blessings God grants me daily. So I thought I would just share a few...
The first breeze of spring...
I have special reasons that I love all seasons...I'm not a huge fan of summer because I detest hot, unbreathable weather. But I do love springtime. I love the smell of fresh grass as neighbors race to be the first to mow their not quite over-grown lawns. I love the newness of everything, and the discovery of them. One morning you may wake up and your garden may be bare. The next day, you walk outside and there are rows of daffodils awaiting you! Something I love the most about spring are the days when it's about 72 degrees, light humidity, and not a cloud in the sky. I step outside, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and I feel the tiniest breeze. It feels so fantastic as if it is welcoming me. Now that Caroline is getting a little older, it is so much fun to take her outside on these days and just watch her explore, peak around corners, gently touch the flowers, and scream at the excitement of it all!
Embracing the silliness of it all. . .
I am a mother, a wife, and have a full-time job, so at any given minute I have about fifty different things on my plate...get to work, make sure the gas tank is full, fix dinner, get Caroline's things ready for the sitter, get lunches ready for the next day, pick up toys, yadayadayada. Though I do have a never ending to do list going on in my head, it's nice sometimes to just stop and enjoy the silliness! Maybe it's a funny dance with my husband or giving Caroline a fancy up-do or dressing her in Cow-covered rain boots, or playing "Ring Around the Rosie" , or taking a minute to truly embrace the humor in one of mine and Craig's favorite tv shows...once in awhile, it's nice to wipe out the to-do list, forget everything I've got planned, and just embrace the silliness!
You Are What You Eat. . .
Lately, for some reason, I've become obsessed with wanting to know all the celebrity diet secrets. It started with Patricia Heaton, who plays "Frankie Heck" on one of my favorite tv shows "The Middle". In real life, she is a mother of four and obviously stays very busy...but I couldn't get over how tiny she was! So I got online, thinking she must have some weight loss/maintenance secret that all hard-working-but-no-time-to-actually-work-out-mothers should possess! I had to have it, whatever it was! Well, I determined that her "secrets" involve plastic surgery, colonics, and eating once a day. Now I don't judge her for doing any of these things. She is a movie star for crying out loud, and if I had people scrutinizing my every move, I'd make sure I was lookin' tight and tiny too! But after learning this and realizing the pressure she must be under to look the way she does, I stopped comparing myself to her. I love eating my favorite foods...way to much to have it pumped out of me! My favorite foods, if I'm going to be honest with myself, are really just about anything. I love pasta with lots of sauce...the creamier the better! And what's pasta without a giant, buttery bread stick to dip into it! Yum! I also love cheese by the block and chips and fries and ice cream and those super-long pretzel sticks and super-huge soft pretzels with cream cheese for dipping! Yum! I love it all really. But one of mine...and Caroline's...favorite things to eat is chocolate...anything!
And the clean-up is even more fun!
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them. . .
Between work and home, I get to spend a lot of time with children, which is probably one of my favorite things to do. Children, in my eyes, are just fantastic and have so many great qualities....they can maintain their innocence while still being brutally honest with you. The truly embrace life for what it is, and not what it should be. Until they get a little older, they dance around, most of the time literally, without a care in the world...they don't worry about what people are thinking or what college they are going to get into or if all the bills have been paid on time. Sometimes I like to look at adults as very jaded children because I believe that we all have childish sides. We just have so much other stuff distracting us from it! Last weekend, I was blessed to be able to spend some much needed time with my parents and my brother and his beautiful family. My father and I were helping my oldest niece into bed one evening, and as we were tucking her in, I reminded her to say her prayers. So she bowed her head and stated her nighttime "Now I lay me down to sleep..." When she was finished, I asked her if she had any "special prayers" she'd like to say. She look up at me with the big brown eyes and said "I would like to pray for my friends." I don't have any pictures of this wonderful weekend to show you, but the mental picture of this moment my father and I spent with this three year old little angel will never be forgotten.
"The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. "
-Isaiah 11: 6
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