Category Archives: Holidays

Family, Holidays

19 Reasons to Celebrate My Son’s 19th Birthday Today

  1. It’s his Golden Birthday!  Nineteen years on the nineteenth!
  2. He’s an amazing young man who has empathy, maturity, and wisdom beyond his years.
  3. He makes me laugh all the time.
  4. When I am sad, he hugs me until he takes away at least some of the sadness.
  5. Even at 19 years old, he still doesn’t mind hanging out with his mom.
  6. He talks to me.  Really talks.  About important things and unimportant things and dreams and goals and life decisions.  We communicate well.
  7. Hardly anything can embarrass him.  And I’ve tried.
  8. He brings his friends around.
  9. We like a lot of the same movies and TV shows and enjoy watching them together.
  10. He thinks I’m young enough to understand the music he listens to.
  11. He has indeed introduced me to a lot of new music.
  12. His smile is quick and sincere.
  13. Even when he was young, he’s always been able to talk to anyone.  People don’t scare him the way they do me.
  14. He kills bugs for me.
  15. Almost all of my favorite memories involve him.
  16. Before he was born, when I was in a car wreck, there were some scary minutes when we couldn’t hear his heartbeat.  I don’t think I’ve ever prayed harder than that hour.
  17. He supports my goals and dreams, even if they take us away from each other geographically.
  18. He loves with his whole heart.
  19. I am so proud of the man he has become.

    Caleb at the top of Haleakala Volcano, Maui - June 2010
Family, Favorites, Holidays, Memories

Favorite Easter Memories

  1. Early morning Sunrise Services, sitting outside, shivering in the early desert air
  2. Breakfast in the church fellowship hall
  3. Beautiful dresses sewn by my mother
  4. Dying eggs  –the smell of vinegar, writing on eggs with a white crayon, leaving them in the dye a long time to get vivid colors
  5. Hiding and seeking the eggs
  6. The year my dad hid an egg in the rafters of the front porch and it wasn’t found ’til months later
  7. Easter hymns: “Hear the bells ringing they’re singing that we can be born againnnnnnn…”
  8. Imagining the wonder of the women who found the empty tomb
  9. Easter baskets with chocolate and jelly beans and plastic grass

    Easter Sunday, Late 70s
Holidays, Humor

Why St. Patty’s Day Was Awesome This Year

  1. My new “Feeling Lucky” / Lucky Charms t-shirt
  2. Joining the 20,000 people at Kelly’s Irish Pub & Eatery that day (Literally, they announced the number at the end of the night.)
  3. Skydiving Leprechauns
  4. Walking under tall people
  5. 1000 people singing “Living On a Prayer” at the top of their lungs
  6. The camraderie in the line for the women’s bathroom
  7. Green beer
  8. Screaming to talk to your friends
  9. Late night Village Inn
  10. Having my BFF in town

Books, Favorites, Holidays, Quotes

In Recognition of the Ides of March, Some of My Favorite Shakespeare Quotes

  1. “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.  He thinks too much.  Such men are dangerous.”
  2. “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
  3. “I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”
  4. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
  5. “Cowards die many times before their deaths.”
  6. “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
  7. “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”