Happy Birthday Buddy

9?! Wait, what??? You can't possibly be 9!!! How did that happen??

This is your last year in the single digits! WOW!!!!!!


I am watching and listening to you play with your younger brother and sister right now and all I can say is...Adam if you are half as good with your own kids someday as you are with your brother and sisters, then you are going to be one heck of a dad!!!

I am not sure you are aware of just how proud I am to be your mom!

Yes, I am proud of you for being on student council, for excelling at football, for being a cub scout, for being involved in the church play, for getting good grades.

I am even more proud of the character you have. You are loving, patient, helpful, kind, funny, compassionate.

I do not know who you will grow up to be, what you will do as a profession, how many kids you may have or where you will live. I know you will not be perfect, you will as we all have, make mistakes...

But I hope you know....I will always be proud of you!!!!

I love you very much and am honored, proud and blessed to be your mom!!!

4 letter word

I feel a 4 letter word coming on.....

Got your attention? :)

We often think of bad, inappropriate words when someone uses the phrase 4 letter words!

I have been known to once or twice use one of these such words myself, shocking I know!

But, today I am here on behalf of my friend the 4 letter word, to redeem its name!

There are many wonderful 4 letter words, more so in fact than there are not!

Below are some of my favorites.

glad
care
blog
live
grin
pets
home
pray
Lord
song
farm
wine
beer
form
text
food
work-outs (yep, some creative liberty here)
fams (and here)
fone (and here :)

My most favorite one's however, are...
pals
kids
moms
dads
book
life
love
And................................................................................ brace yourself..................................................................
work!!!!

Yep, work! It is a 4 letter word I rather enjoy! I enjoy working around my house, working in my garden, working with my children, working out, and work as in what I do to earn money and give back to the world!

After 5.5 years of being out of the working world....I am heading back! EEEEK!!!! A couple 4 letter words can be inserted here as well.....such as
VERY
PART
TIME
PAID (which I wont be for the next 3 days :(, but will be after that)
SUBS (not the kind you eat)
OHMY (again with the creative liberty)

I will NOT let these 2 four letter words enter my psychie though...
fear and weak....
Though they are trying hard!

Yes, I am nervous. Yes, I will be nervous probably every time I step into a new classroom.

But, I know I can do this. All my years of education and training aside, this "work" is what I was born to do. It is a part of who I am.

 I have been blessed to be able to stay home and educate my own children for years. And will continue to do so even as I venture out very part time into the "real" world.

Nervousness is allowed to reside, it will keep me humble and human, as long as its companion, excitement, resides larger!

Wish me luck as I take on the new venture of an old love "WORK"

Weeds

I love having a garden. I love feeling the dirt beneath my fingers. Digging holes. Planning what vegetables i will grow. But my most favorite part is watching it grow. Daily you can see the difference in the sprouts. All it takes is a little TLC. But even with the TLC you have to watch carefully. In any garden, you will get weeds. They must be monitored and extracted quickly or they can take over your beautiful garden, destroying your crop and requiring much extra work to get your sweet vegetables right again.

It occurred to me tonight when I was watering my garden, that we, as humans, especially our children, are not much different.

We get our hands dirty, prepare, plan and plant our lives. We grow and change, sometimes daily. Somewhere along the way we autopilot our caring and watering. We watch a weed pop up and think we will get to it tomorrow when we have more time. And all too quickly, time passes and not only did we not extract our original weed, but now many more have joined it. Now we are faced with a choice. Do we take the time to clean up the mess, pull the weeds and throw them away or do we till our whole garden and start again.

We all have weeds. Some are very deep and others remain very close to the surface. Whether they are yesterdays unkind word or thought or perhaps an incident from years gone by, we all have something that holds us back from growing.

No one is immune. As much as I try to keep my garden of children carefully watered and very loved, I notice, they too have weeds. Thankfully, they are pretty much surface area weeds that are easy to pluck. But I know that if I do not pluck the weeds, ever careful to not accidentally destroy the blossoming vegetable, they will overtake my sweet tomatoes.

The same is true of any relationship that you have. Be it marriage, friendship, co-workers, family members. Are there weeds holding you back from growing? Something you can't let go of? An apology you need to make, a goof-up you can't seem to forget? A weed you accidentally plucked, that perhaps wasn't? Are you allowing weeds to grow within you that is stunting your ability to be a beautiful vegetable?

Gardening and life, certainly aren't easy. We all have weeds and we all pluck things we think are weeds only to later discover they were in fact, not!

I challenge you today, dear reader, to find a weed, either surface or deep, and pull it. Before you do, examine closely to make sure it is in fact a weed and not a wayward shoot-off of your plant.

Pick your plot, whether it is a spouse or friend or family member, all of which should love you unconditionally and accept and encourage your need to tend to your garden.

But today, no try to make it every day for 1 week, pull a weed. It can't hurt!!! It can only help your grow!