"Life" Books
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Wanna Pack of Nabs?
“The stories of older generations aren’t relics of the past, they’re seeds for the future we build together.” -Maya Angelou Grandparents Day is this coming Sunday, this has always been a special day that is close to my heart, here are some reasons why: I was blessed to have all four of my grandparents in my life, close by, all of my “growing up” years. They all passed when I was in my twenties. I love that I was able to see them become great-grandparents, and that I have been able to see my parents become grandparents. Not everybody has this chance, opportunity, or situation. And I am incredibly grateful…
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Stand Beside Them
"May God bless you withdiscomfort at easy answers,half truths, and superficialrelationships, so that youmay live deep within your heart.May God bless you with angerat injustice, oppression,and exploration of people,so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.Many God bless you with tearsto shed for those who sufferfrom pain, rejection, starvation and war, so thatyou may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turntheir pain to joy.May God bless you with enoughfoolishness to believe thatyou can make a difference inthis world, so that you cando what others claim cannot be done.Amen." - A Franciscan Blessing I encourage you to read this blessing a couple of times, and really…
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NaNa Brings Me Marshmallows
“People say I’m ‘good with kids.’ But really I’m just a grown-up who vividly remembers how positively and deeply it affects a child to be treated with kindness and respect. I just make sure to offer the same to every child I know.” – Nancy Kopman School days. There are not many days that I can remember that I wasn’t eagerly waiting for the day to be over, and the time had arrived for me to line up for “car riders.” I can still feel this overwhelming deep breath. The sight of a gold mini van, or wood panel mini van, or green volvo station wagon, or white Nissan, or…
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Peace, Love, and Flower Power
“Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting mirroring injustice, the act of disarming the evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight, but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.” Common Prayer: A Liturgy for the Ordinary Radical My niece went through a hippie, tie-dye, bohemian, ragamuffin, dress herself, quite amazingly I might add, phase. This was when she was five or six. She would style things that you wouldn’t think of putting together, and proceeded…
- "Life" Books, Aunt-ing, Children, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Mommy, Pass it On..., Siblings
Stealing Boredom.
“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming.” Glennon Doyle I came across this quote this past week and instantly I felt heard, somehow. Quotes do this for me sometimes, well most of the time. I finished up writing mine and Lucy’s forever and always family story last…
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Didn’t You Just Book a Stay?
Today, I come as a ragamuffin storyteller. I have been working on writing mine and Lucy’s story, and that has taken all the best of me, as it should. But I thought I’d share a little story that happened this month. Maybe it can encourage someone who is on the same “wavelength” or a least you can get a good laugh. A couple of weeks ago, we had flash flooding in NC. Around our area there was some damage near rivers and lakes. Actually the lake that our family lake home was on, that my parents sold last summer, had really bad damage. Where we are now, the water treatment…
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You Say… I Say…
Everyone has some sort of accent, a way of speaking. We emphasize certain letters, and draw out parts of words, or even shorten words. It comes with the life we live. It makes up part of who we are. There is another category all together, which I’m not sure how you would define it other than genius new versions of words. Let me explain. The majority of the words I am about to present to you, are words that children have used. It’s how their ears hear the word, and how their mind interprets the word, and then how their mouth translates, or attempts to translate the word. I don’t…
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Looking Back. Seeing His Faithfulness.
If there is one thing I have learned about the special needs (physical/intellectual/emotional/behavioral/learning disabilities/differences- lots of way to phrase this) tribe, is that you upset one of us, you upset us all. Honestly, we try to breathe and let a few things slide, but it’s near impossible to do. I have been having a bit of a need to go back and look through a notebook/journal that my mom kept for both my brother and I. She didn’t write something everyday, but she wrote the key points in our lives at the moment, and funny stories or things we said, our many doctors appointments and school meetings, things that were…
- "Life" Books, Chronic Illness, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Jesus, Mommy, My Little, Single Parenting
What the Sprinkles!?!?!
Oh dear, aww shucks, what the heck…. We do our best to avoid those sneaky four letter words that are so rampant in culture. We quickly try to think of a substitute… That’s what happened with my mom and I when one of us just blurted out, “What the sprinkles!” We were shocked, I don’t even remember what it was about, and sprinkles were in eyesight and so that became the substitute and now is a common phrase around the house. “Potty mouth,” as it was called in the 1990s, was a no-no in our house growing up, but as I have become an adult I have found there are…
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Make a Move!
Today, I am going to share a post that one of my friends shared on Instagram this past week. I met Derrica (pictures of her in High School at YL camps above😊) through Young Life in high school, twenty something years ago, which explains the good ole’ flip phone in the picture (that was some top tech there to all you younger folks!). Derrica, a.k.a. “Mama D,” is one of those friends that you can just say her name and the warmth of her friendship and countenance just fills your soul with an abundance of joy! She was the homecoming queen, the student body president, everybody loves Derrica! But she…
