10 Things to Teach My Son

1. Do Not Listen to Your Father: Scaring mom is not funny.

2. Take Risks: You'll learn more about yourself than you ever imagined.

3. Ride a Dirt Bike: You'll learn control and discipline while having a blast.

4. Play Volleyball: Everything you need to know about life will be found in volleyball. :D

5. Laugh Often and Laugh at Yourself: Don't take yourself or life too seriously, it's best enjoyed with laughter.

6. Believe In Yourself: Even when the world is saying you can't, and those you love are doubting Thomas', know with determination & hard work you can do anything you set your mind to.

7. Love Deeply: Love is the subtle bond that links us all; open your heart to the possibility even if it has been broken - holding back will only consume you with bitterness.

8. Don't Listen to Your Father: Scaring mom is not funny.

9. Forgive yourself: You can't change the past, release yourself from the shackles of regret, fear, or pressure you place on yourself.

10. Be Hopeful: If you look at the world through pessimistic eyes you'll only see the negative. Good and evil will always be at odds with each other, but you can have a heaven on earth if you focus on all the good you have in your life and let go of pessimism.

Count Your Moments

There are moments in life where you need no affirmation that you are exactly where you are meant to be.  When the muddled what if's or should have, could have, would have's fade away.  Moments when future plans blurr, too distant to discern.  Moments when you wish you could freeze time.  Stand still.  Never change.  I often find myself watching our 'kids' and wishing with all my heart that I could make time stand still so that nothing would ever change.  Old age wouldn't consume our dogs.  Time wouldn't haunt our bodies and we could simply be exactly as we are at that moment. 

But what is life without adventure?  How could you know the happy times truly are happy without knowing the sad?  How can you touch lives if you never grow into the person you were meant to be?  Life is complex.  Filled with too many moments to freeze.  And if that invisible force pushing us forward, moving us to the next day, never gave us that gentle nudge to move on would we then never know the bliss that awaits us?

There are moments in this life that I will never forget.  My grandpa calling out, "here comes star."  Hiding from the neighborhood boogie man with girl friends in middle school (the pee man - LOL).  Showing up on my sister's doorstep crying and her enfolding me in a hug.  My family laughing so hard at a silly shrunken T shirt.  Seeing my husband for the first time.  Seeing my husband at the end of the aisle...

Too many moments to recount here. 

I pray that I never forget those moments.  That I can look back on life, unleash the treasured times and be filled the memory of a life well lived.  To everyone reading this, treasure your moments.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Tally your blessings and let go of that which holds you back.  At end of my life you'll find me recounting my moments....date nights with grandma and drinking too much wine...giving my parents a 'cool' wave at my volleyball games...playing in the halls of the hospital with Levi the night Arianna was born...meeting Tonio for the first time...Marilyn's patience teaching me to ride the quad...the night we brought home our Champ...

Premonition

A foreboding settles in; there is no escaping what you know is to come. Your heart beats frantically, determined to outrun what it knows will come to pass...determined to ignore the knot twisting and tightening in your stomach that coincides with the anxiety building with every pulse. Your mind knows, even though you try to rationalize the red flags and push logic aside. A mind numbing search for the words that when given life solidify your fate.

There are moments in life where you know your own destiny. A destiny that is not of your own choosing. A fate that comes when you are busy planning for another day. Sometimes the best decisions in life are those that are taken out of your hands. Decisions that if you had it your way would be put off, or occur sooner, different, or are never even a glimmer of the road you planned to take. But what happens when a new road forms? When debris is cleared away revealing a journey you never expected. A life you didn't imagine, or at least a life you were not ready to change. You want to argue with destiny, question the sanity for your new life, and flaunt your temper at such an abrupt change to God. Why me? Why now? What about my plan...

Can you really be angry, though, when your gut forewarned you? Such glaring intuition, the premonition that change is upon you, doesn't happen everyday. Should you be angry with yourself for ignoring the voice of reason? Your voice of reason. Change is good. It allows us all to grow into the person we were meant to be. We should embrace the roads set out before us whether of our own making or destiny's. Put one foot in front of the other and make the journey; praying that sooner than later your heart stops beating frantically.

Become your own superhero

Doubt is easy. The consequence of doubt is a given. Faith is hard, there is no reassurance, no material item received or substantial evidence that faith is well placed. I'm not speaking of one's religious belief, but rather to the doubt that festers within the mind - the faith or doubt in one's self, in one's ability.

How can you know that the doubt lingering at the edges of your mind is not sound advice? When do you turn away from doubt to know that your faith will prevail? How do you dispose of the seeds of doubt making room for the blossoms of faith? Is doubt a sounding board that reigns us in when our aspirations are above our reach? Or is it a menace that should be locked away with all the other detrimental negativity?

Doubt pursues like a villain in the night: haunting your heart, persuading your mind. It coils like a snake and strangles that which could push us to something far better than ever imagined. It weighs you down, siphoning the air from your lungs, essentially stealing the breath of your faith.

Yes, doubt is easy. With doubt there is no action required. Simply give in and the darkness of doubt will shroud you. Faith, though, requires more. It requires you remove the blinders of doubt, eliminate the shackles of fear and contain the villain that pursues. With faith you can make bold your beliefs and shine when others would see you dimmed. Doubt will come in many forms from many people, even the people least suspected; those that you love (and they have no idea they are planting the seeds) just as easily as from those you respect the least. Doubt does not discriminate, it simply smiles eagerly at its intended victim knowing if their faith is not sound it can and will wound quickly.

Hold fast to your faith. Stand bold when doubt positions itself for attack. Persevere. Let faith broaden. Let doubt shrink. Reinforce your foundation of faith with every strike that doubt deals because as surely are you will persevere, so will doubt.

Dueces wild!

Two years ago, I married my love. Levi was like no other man I dated. He was different. We had that kinship of the heart that comes when you find a true friend. Sara will tell you that after our first date I said he was "the one." I knew it in the depths of my soul, the confines of my heart. What ever happened from that point forward I was forever changed because he stirred my heart as no other. He is my match in every way. I am stubborn and passionate, I love to laugh at inappropriate times because in the chaos of life I find humor. He laughs with me. He plays silly hand games with me in the hospital while we are waiting for our niece to be born. He endures an argument even if the argument is silly and inconsequential. He listens. He is patient. He is kind. He is so intelligent. He is honest to a fault. He is the love of my life.

I pray you all have felt that kind of love. It may be from the love of your life, or the unconditional love from a mother or friend. But it's a love that occurs when there are no expectations, when there are no secrets, when we reveal every side of our self to another and they accept everything without keeping score. Love occurs every day, in every shape and every form. Grab hold of your love and foster it, because "Where there is love, there is life." Mahatma Gandhi.

Added little tidbit:

Last year, Levi read an excerpt from Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom at his mom's wedding. I think it is the most appropriate passage for any married couple. While I have only been married two years, I do know that above every other piece of advice we received, this one is the one we both hold close. It is from the chapter, "The Tenth Tuesday We Talk About Marriage," Page 149. Morrie is telling the author, Mitch, that for a marriage to succeed you need to respect one another, be able to compromise, be able to talk openly about what goes on between the two of you, and finally, have a common set of values. Morrie goes on to say that of all the values, the most important one is your belief in the importance of your marriage. If you both do not put your marriage as a priority, then you're going to have a lot of problems. If you have not read this book, I highly suggest it. It's a great read and has great life lessons.

Happy Anniversary my love!

Shackles

Fear holds us back. It wraps its manacles firmly around you, restricting the reach for higher goals. It weaves a seam across your lips, cutting off the voice that shouts for something better. It is a stealth operative, creeping into the depths of our minds disengaging our senses, poisoning us to believe we are incapable of the success we seek. Why is fear so easy to give in to? Why do we allow the obstacles that intercept our roads to become road blocks? Instead we should maneuver the road, always keeping our eye on the final destination. The boulders that crowd the journey can be large, astonishing even the strongest of wills. But they can be overcome. They can be left on the shoulder as we pursue what we set out to achieve. Too easily, though, a littered highway distracts us. Our destination no longer visible. Detours have lead us astray rather than back to the main course. When those pebbles of doubt begin to grow into the boulders of fear cluttering the carefully mapped out road to success we have charted in our minds it is time to accelerate. Escape the evil of fear that pursues your dreams. Break free from the icy manacles that restrain. Fear cannot be an option.

Easier said than done. Easier to give advice than take it. If only the advice we give so many were so easy to swallow ourselves. Fear is individual and unique. We carefully place the shackles ourselves. We quickly tuck away the key that would release us from this bondage, sometimes forgetting entirely where we even placed it.

Today is the day I break free. Today is the day I push ahead. Today is the day fear falls behind, only a distant reminder in my rear view mirror. Today is the day. I'll start on it tomorrow. ;)

Two Roads

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and been one traveler long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth." --Robert Frost, The Road Less Traveled


Sixth through eighth grade brought with it a teacher who loved to make us do public speaking exercises. One of which was reciting poems in front of the class. She promised that years down the road we would be thanking her because we would remember these epic poems. I vaguely remember any of those poems. A line here or there from a Shakespearean sonnet. I remember a poem about a Tree - I think it was a poem we got to choose our self and it was the shortest one I could find. ("I think I will never see, something as lovely as a Tree.") However, among all we were forced to memorize I remember this, Robert Frost's The Road Less Traveled.


It seems this poem whispers back to me whenever I find myself at a crossroad in life. When I am faced with two roads and wishing fervently that I had hindsight in making my decision. I know the strait and narrow path will never lead me astray, but what if...what if the road less traveled takes me beyond anything I could imagine? Strange that of all the poems, this is the one I remember. One where a decision must be made and looking down the paths laid out ahead there is the road worn and true and there is a road that is grassy and want for wear. I don't want to get to the end of my life wondering what if? What if I would have taken the road less traveled? I know where I'll end up on the road that is worn...everyone ends up there...but what if I take this other road? What then?


Decisions are decisions are decisions. You make the choice, hold firm and know that you must endure the consequences, because unfortunately there is no crystal ball. If only life were so simple. So I sit here looking down the road of my life wondering where the fork splits into my two paths and which path will be want for wear in this journey.


"And I...I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Farewell for now...

Death sucks. It isn't easy. Loosing Curly this week has caused a lot of emotions from my grandma's death to resurface. There hasn't been a week that's gone by these past six years where I haven't thought of her. Where I have not wished I could have one more dinner or conversation, one more movie or sporting event with her. I feel her presence often. I know she is still with me, watching over me. But the pain and selfishness of not having her in the flesh still hurts.

My grandma was amazing, stronger than I will ever know, compassionate and loving. Grandparents are a treasure. They save the Wednesday kids section of the paper for you even though they won't see you for another week. They make you banana cereal with a cut up banana and sugar because you love bananas. They even find special trinkets or rings that have absolutely no value besides the fact that it made them think of you (and they still give you trinkets when you are 16, 21...). My grandmother carved a niche in my spirit, a hole that can never be filled. There are people in life who carve etchings on your soul, and then there are those people who mold and carve you into a better person. They have the ability to truly make you whole. I am better for having her in my life and for the lessons she taught me, but my soul is still missing a piece because she is gone. I wish that Levi could have known her. I wish that my children could have known the beauty of her love. But life is not always fair. I have learned how to breath with the hollowed holes that loosing a loved one leaves. I pray that my cousins find peace in God's embrace as they deal with the heartache of loosing a beloved grandparent. So farewell for now Curly, we'll meet you again in the presence of His love. Would you say hello to my grandparents for me? Tell them I love them.