life – Sew Beach Life

Thanks & Giving

2020 has been an unusual year, with plenty of challenges. (You don’t say! 😉 ) But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an abundance of things to be thankful for.

I am thankful that our son and daughter-in-law were able to have a beautiful wedding in early February. Our families and a few friends gathered together to celebrate the happy occasion.

“Uncle Jon Jon look! I threw all my petals for you!”

Getting my sweet little flower girl to exit stage right so that the bride could make her way down the aisle was a bit of a challenge!

My sweet Lila was one of the flower girls, and it’s safe to say that she truly enjoyed the experience! She made sure to toss all the rose petals, but then didn’t want to just leave them there! 🙂 Toddlers always add a bit of laughter to a wedding! On a side note, when my daughter (Lila’s Mama) was three years and two days old, she was the flower girl at my sister’s wedding. She provided the laughter when she proclaimed “I have to go potty right now!” My Dad laughed so hard! And, being the good Grandpa that he was, quickly jumped up to rush her to the bathroom. Ah, memories!

I am also very thankful for our second granddaughter. The sweet babe was born back in May, during the height of CoVid. Which means that we didn’t get to meet her until she was nearly 48 hours old. But we did get to care for Lila while Mama, Daddy and baby sister stayed at the hospital, and I really enjoyed all the one on one time. It’s hard to believe that the sweet newborn babe is already 6 months old!

You can’t help but smile at her happy grin, and I swear she can see your soul when looking at you with those dark eyes!

I’m also grateful for the ability to sew. It’s one of the things that gave me focus and joy during the stressful times of 2020. Being able to create something beautiful and useful is a wonderful gift, and I definitely thank God for blessing me with this talent.

I am thankful that the yoga studio I attend was only closed for two months during CoVid. A regular yoga practice helps burn off anxious energy, and yoga breathing is definitely calming. It’s been a great form of exercise for me. And seeing the familiar faces every week has kept a sense of normalcy in my life.

I’m very grateful to be able to live in sunny Florida, where, despite the ridiculous number of hurricanes and tropical storms this year, we haven’t suffered any damage beyond broken palm fronds and a small roof leak. We have the opportunity to visit with family who live within a few hours drive. We get to walk the beach, breathe the fresh sea air, and see beautiful sunsets over the ocean.

Dan and his brother enjoyed having a dolphin swim quite close to them during our last beach day.

In short, I have much to be thankful for. Now for the “giving”. Obviously I believe in charitable giving. Our faith calls us to share and care for others. I’m talking about a different kind of giving, more specifically giving up the things that no longer serve us.

2020 has been a very contentious year on social media. Mean-spirited attacks on people with different beliefs on everything from politics, faith, CoVid restrictions, you name it. Some people have become downright mean turning to threats and bullying. It’s just silly! Arguing and acting like a child throwing a tantrum just because someone holds a different point of view certainly isn’t going to win them over to your POV! 🙂

Hopefully we can all give up our feelings of superiority, and give others the opportunity to discuss their beliefs. Let’s give up our judgemental natures and recognize that everyone is created in the image of God, and therefore we all have value. Can we also give up the temptation to so easily wander into sin? It’s not like we don’t have a simple guide to life in the ten commandments! 🙂

I plan to work harder at giving up a grumpy attitude when things don’t go as smoothly as I’d like. To not let the small irritations in life turn into major worries. Instead I plan to give in to God. To surrender my need for control, and recognize that God loves us, and wants us to be the best possible version of ourselves. That no matter what challenges life in 2020 brings, God is and always has been there for us.

Happy Thanksgiving dear readers! I am thankful that you read, follow, and like my little blog. No matter where you are in the world, I hope that you too are giving thanks for all the good in your life. I also hope that you’ll join me in giving up the negative and give in to God’s call. ❤

It’s Time For Cake!

It’s funny how you miss certain things, and just figure that life is different now, so you’ll probably never have them again. And then you get a text from your sweet husband, and do a little happy dance.

Let me back up a bit and set the stage for this story. I’ve been blessed with a bit of a green thumb. I’ve always liked plants, and remember having houseplants since we were first married and living in a little apartment with only two windows. When we bought our first real house, I spent the next twenty years gradually building up gardens. The house got surrounded with perennial flower gardens. Pots of annuals lined the back patio, and were filled with color from spring to autumn.

There was always a pot or two of herbs growing on the back deck. We built a vegetable garden in the back yard and grew lots of tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, squash, sugar snap peas, green beans, and whatever other plants inspired me when I visited the local garden centers. One corner of the garden contained a nice patch of rhubarb. I carefully harvested the rhubarb, never taking more than a third of the stalks from each clump. The rhubarb grew happily away and provided a harvest starting in spring, and lasting all summer long.

You might be thinking, “Rhubarb? What in the world do you use that for?” Or you may have been lucky enough to have been served strawberry rhubarb pie (which is delicious!) Or perhaps you’ve encountered strawberry rhubarb jam at a farmers market. If you have the opportunity to try either of those things, I highly recommend them. But that’s not what I made with my carefully harvested rhubarb. (Although if you have a good recipe for either of them, I would love it!) Nope, every bit of rhubarb (that wasn’t shared with family) was made into rhubarb cake.

This is no ordinary “bake it, top it with frosting, and serve it at a birthday party” kind of cake. This is a super moist, tartness in every bite, slightly sweet, “Please, can I have another piece?” kind of cake. It is not frosted or crumble topped, because there is no need. The cake itself is pure deliciousness. And when we lived in Michigan, I baked it all summer long.

And then we moved to Florida. I love living here, but have to admit that this Midwest gardener has no clue what to do in this subtropical USDA zone 10a. We bought a house that has a xeriscaped yard, no grass, no real planting beds, and honestly, not much of a landscape plan. I love the palm trees, especially the pretty date palm. And the little orange tree out back is absolutely loaded with fruit this year. But I haven’t found a good garden center like the nearby ones I had in Michigan. So we haven’t really done much with the landscape other than pull weeds and trim back the hibiscus.

This year I put forth a little bit of effort, filled some giant pots with soil and planted tomatoes, a pepper plant, two kinds of basil, and cilantro. Besides the veggie and herb plants, The Home Depot and Lowes garden centers had citrus trees. So tiny lemon and lime trees joined the orange tree in the back yard. With temperatures at ninety plus degrees F this time of year, the tomatoes and trees require daily watering, and hopefully they’ll stay alive! Sadly, it is far too hot for rhubarb to grow here. So, I had resigned myself to never having rhubarb cake again.

Well, a new produce market opened in the town just south of here. So Dan went to check it out before heading to the grocery store. And that’s when my sweet husband texted me this photo:

❤ Cue my happy dance and response to “Buy it all!” 🙂 Ok, I didn’t really want him to buy quite all of it, just a generous handful of stalks. It was a little late in the day to bake, so the next day I washed the rhubarb, trimmed off the ends and peeled it. Although rhubarb leaves are huge and interesting looking, they are not edible as they contain oxalic acid. So you definitely want to cut off and discard all of the leaf. Then I chopped the stalks into chunks and prepared to make the cake.

As a wedding shower gift (37 years ago!), my Aunt gathered recipes she had gotten from my Grandma and copied them onto index cards. The recipes are a connection to a wonderful woman that I miss dearly, and I’m so grateful to have them! You can tell when a recipe is well-loved by how worn, stained, and tattered the recipe card is. It’s pretty obvious that this is a well loved recipe! 🙂

As I’ve grown older and wiser, I’ve learned to use the highest quality ingredients I can find when cooking and baking. So I’ve updated the recipe a bit to make it slightly healthier, and certainly even better tasting. I use up to 4 cups of rhubarb, because I love the extra tartness. The first time you try it though, you might want to start with just the 2 cups. I use pure cane sugar, and King Arthur whole grain white flour. I’ve never used real buttermilk, and have always used the lemon juice “cheat”. And lastly, don’t use shortening, yuck! Butter is the way to go, and I am a big fan of Kerrygold Irish Butter.

The recipe calls for baking 45 minutes, but just like baking anything else, you can tell by the delicious smell when it’s done.

That first bite of cake was so good! A flavor that seemed far away and perhaps lost forever brought back happy memories of summers past in our old home. It was a reminder that connections can be reforged, that the people, places. and things that we love and care about can sometimes back into our lives in surprising little ways.

So, the next time a new produce market opens, or you stumble across an old family recipe, take the time to wander, discover, bake, make, and enjoy! I am so grateful for this happy “find”, and for all that I am blessed with. ❤

Going Forth

I have felt my eyes tear up at Mass on more than one occasion, and generally it is due to the moving words and music of a beloved hymn. Sometimes it is a remark or observation during a homily that hits particularly close to home. Obviously I have cried at funeral Masses, but I don’t recall tears dripping down my face and quickly ripping off my mask while hurrying to the car so that I can cry in private. Until today.

Today was Fr. Jonathan’s last Sunday Mass at our parish. I love Fr. Jonathan, and will really miss having him here. The end of June is when Bishops transfer priests within their diocese to fill the needs in other parishes. Perhaps a priest is retiring, or the needs of a parish are greater than one priest can handle. Perhaps the gifts a priest possesses are greatly needed at another parish. This is the time of year that the transfers happen.

When we first moved to Florida, and temporarily lived in the middle of the state, we attended the local Catholic church that my parents had attended when they lived there. There wasn’t a big sense of belonging, because we knew that we were only living in that city for a short time. When we bought our home, but hadn’t closed on it yet, we began our search for a Catholic church in the area.

It may seem funny that we didn’t bother looking for a new doctor or dentist, hairstylist or barber, restaurants or stores, but rather began researching our new town by looking for a church. I guess it kind of shows how important a church family is to a Catholic. We looked up the Catholic churches in the area, and I chose our church as the first to visit because it also had a school. To me, this was a sign that the church was invested in nurturing families. So we got up early on Sunday and made the long drive over to our soon-to-be new county, and went to Mass.

Fr. Jonathan presided over that Mass, and that was it. There was no need to visit the other Catholic churches in the area, this was the one, this was home. His passion and sincerity, his homilies that make you think, that speak to your heart, that inflame you with the Holy Spirit. His reverence for the Body of Christ, all of it, and in a young man not much older than our children. His preaching is truly inspired, and even guests who have gone to Mass with us have commented on the power in his words.

This, this is why I cried after saying a quick goodbye after Mass. Because of CoVid 19 social distancing, we couldn’t hug Father, or even shake his hand.

After a particularly inspiring homily last year, I recall asking him after Mass if he had ever considered videotaping Mass, or at least his homilies. He quizzically asked me, “Why?” When I perhaps awkwardly explained that I would like to be able to share it with people on social media, he commented that there are others so much more qualified than he, who already had such things available. And that the church didn’t really have the equipment to do such a thing. Little did anyone know that just a year later everyone would have to adapt to livestreaming Mass!

Fortunately, we’ve been able to attend Mass in person this past month. It seemed so disorienting at first. As per the CDC guidelines, every other pew is blocked off. We have to wear masks, and aren’t allowed to sing, so there’s no music. We can wave or bow to others, but not shake hands for the sign of peace. There are tape marks and arrows on the floor to follow when going to Communion, and sections are color coded to guide people to separate exit doors after Mass.

It’s quite different than normal, but it is SO GOOD to be able to receive the Body of Christ again! It’s funny how something that we probably took for granted for years became so missed during the months we had to stay at home. You certainly realize how going to Mass on Sunday really sets you up for the week.

During his homily, Fr. Jonathan reflected on the apostles being sent forth on their mission. Bishops send their priests forth on new missions when they relocate them to a new parish. We have to have faith and follow God’s will to go where we are needed. Even when it feels challenging to leave self behind, we have to trust and look forward to what God has planned for us. Easier said than done, huh?

So it’s sad to have said goodbye, but I am excited for the people who will now benefit from Father Jonathan’s encouraging words. And I know that God will certainly bless him for sharing his faith. Life can feel scary with all the changes and disruptions in our lives lately. But God loves us, He has a plan, and no matter how crazy the outside world may seem, we need to focus on the big picture, share our faith, and stay on the path that leads us to our final goal- eternal life in Heaven with Jesus.

Note: this photo was taken on Easter a couple years ago, before the church was repainted, and before social distancing was a thing. Sadly, I don’t have any recent photos of our church to share.

Merry Beachy Christmas!

One of my friends in Michigan commented on Facebook yesterday that it didn’t “feel like Christmas” because it was 50*F, rather than snowy and cold. Others quickly chimed in, and were either happy that it was (comparatively speaking) so warm, or disappointed that it wasn’t expected to be a snowy white Christmas.

For those of us who live where the weather is warm this time of year, we are enjoying the beautiful sunshine and appreciating the unique ways people decorate for the season. I am frequently astounded at the fun, beautiful, and creative sand sculptures I see when walking the beach.

The nativity scene above not only includes Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus, but animals, shepherds, an angel, and the neighboring inn. I love the way that the sculptor made use of debris on the beach to create the beautiful Christmas scene. They took what was around them, what some might have ignored, or considered trash, and turned it into something beautiful, sharing their faith with others.

Holidays in general, and Christmas in particular, can sometimes feel challenging. It is a time when families and loved ones gather together to celebrate Christ’s birth. But if you’re mourning a loved one, or separated from family, or struggling financially, dealing with health issues, or feeling a little lost or overwhelmed, it might not feel like a happy time of celebration. We might think that we’re the only ones that feel this way. But I think we all have at least a few of these concerns on our minds.

I certainly miss my Dad, and his funny, sort of Bah Humbug! sense of humor (and matching Christmas hat). 🙂 I miss my grandparents, and their sweetness, and sense of fun and excitement to see and spend time with everyone.

I wish my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter didn’t live so far away. And I wish that they could be here for Christmas. Who wouldn’t want to see the excitement on their grandchild’s face at Christmas? But we’ll have to make do with Facetime and photos. (Including slightly fuzzy Facetime photos!)

I think most of us have a financial or health concern of some kind. Whether it is our own finances or health, or concern for the struggles, and mental or physical health of people we care about.

I encourage you to look beyond, and let go of your struggles and concerns. Spend some quiet time in prayer. Remember why we celebrate Christmas. Because Jesus was born into this world to save us from our sins. We do not have to struggle through life alone. In fact, life is so much easier and better when we don’t!

When we reach out in love, with kindness for others, when we look for things to be grateful for, when we open our hearts and turn to God, relying on Him for hope and help, peace and joy start trickling into our life and heart. I encourage you to go to Mass, to let the beautiful Christmas hymns wash over you, and open your heart and ears to listening for God. He is always there, waiting to welcome you into His love. Give yourself the Christmas gift of the time and opportunity to feel that love.

Whether you are knee deep in snow, or strolling the sandy shores, I wish you a Merry Christmas wherever you are!

Capture The Moment

Have you ever witnessed a moment that seems so sweet that you feel like it should be captured in a photograph? Watching children play, and seeing their pure joy is a frequent occurrence that leads to the thought that you wish you had a camera to catch the expression on their face. Especially if it has been a hard or challenging day or season in life. Seeing happiness makes us want to smile and join in on the fun.

Dan and I were walking the beach last night, and moving at a rather quick pace, since sunset was less than a half hour away when we started our walk. We passed other walkers, joggers, and people sitting or lounging on the sand, waiting to watch the sun set. We were strolling past a couple that looked to be in their late 20’s to early 30’s sitting on the beach. The wife leaned in to say something, the husband smiled, and they leaned together touching cheeks, smiling towards the sun.

It was such a sweet moment that I stopped walking, turned to them and said, “Where’s your camera? You two just look so sweet!” The wife reached into her pocket, set her phone to camera mode and handed it to me. I took a couple of quick photos of their faces shining in the sun, glowing with happiness, and handed back the phone.

I am not normally the type of person who randomly starts a conversation with strangers. Dan, yes. Me? Not so much. But I just couldn’t help thinking that this young couple would want that moment of sweetness and sunshine captured. Before you think that I am too much of a weirdo asking someone for their phone, keep in mind that tourist season has started in Florida. On sunny days, the beaches are full of visitors, enjoying the warmth, wonder, and beauty along the coast. It is not uncommon to have a couple or group ask a walker passing by to take their photo. And when I’ve seen a Mom or Grandma taking photos of their group, I’ve encouraged them to get in the photo and taken a few quick shots for them.

I recall my daughter telling me about when their little family was playing at a splash pad, and someone commented that they and Lila were having so much fun that their family needed to be captured in a photo. The stranger caught the huge smiles on their faces as they played together. It is a great photograph.

I love being able to capture a moment of happiness for someone, just like I’ve captured it in my mind. Hopefully, every time they look at the photos, they’ll remember the fun, the happiness, the joy, they were feeling at that moment.

Dan recently sent me a photo he took when we were visiting for Lila’s 2nd birthday. We had taken Lila to the park, and she is flying high on the swing, her hair flying up in the air as she achieves weightlessness.

I love seeing her enjoy a happy, carefree childhood, filled with love and laughter. It makes me smile every time I look at it, because it reminds me of how fun she is to play and interact with. And it reminds me of all the times I’ve been on a swing and enjoyed that same feeling of floating while up in the air.

I’m certainly not advocating for life to be lived with a phone or camera in front of your face all the time. There’s definitely something to be said about just savoring life, and capturing the beautiful moments in your minds’ eye. Life is rarely Instagram perfect, and involves a lot of “cropping out” the not so pretty stuff. But when we take the time to look around, look for the beautiful, joyous, happy, peaceful, spontaneously wonderful moments around us, we can capture memories to help sustain us during the not so perfect moments in life. And if we can capture those moments for others, why not risk being thought of as a weirdo when you ask someone for their phone? 🙂

By all means just enjoy the power-walk, breathing in the fresh air, listening to the sounds around you. But every once in a while you might want to stop and take a photo of the beautiful spaces, and faces, and wonders in life.

All The Walls

We started stripping the wallpaper in our master bedroom yesterday. We’ve never cared for the grass-cloth wallpaper, it was on the walls when we moved in. Like most people, every house we’ve ever lived in has been a “fixer upper”. As time and budget allowed, we gradually improved each place, turning them into nicer homes.

Our old home of 20 years had wallpaper in nearly every room when we bought it. From a foil print velvet floral flocked wallpaper in the bathroom, to a brown vinyl textured in the living room and kitchen (which coordinated so nicely 😉 with the brown tile countertop with an impressed grassy plant design) to the burgundy vinyl “accent wall” and plush gray, carpet-like wallpaper in the master bedroom. It took me months to strip all the old wallpaper off, scrub down the walls to remove the glue residue, and prime and paint all the walls. But gradually, working on it on nights and weekends, I got it done, and really improved the look of our home.

When we first moved to Florida and stayed at my Mom’s old house for three months while we house-hunted, we started fixing it up for her. We replaced hardware and faucets, and installed a storm door on the back door. The rotten, shredding curtains were replaced with mini-blinds. And I stripped wallpaper. The ditsy patterned wallpaper in the kitchen was the first to go.

Then I moved on to the dining room and family room. The textured wallpaper was very thoroughly stuck, and bits of drywall came off when I peeled it off bit by bit. Which meant I had to do a lot of patching after spending days scrubbing all of the glue residue off.

Eventually I was able to prime and paint, and ended up with a cute dining area in which to eat and sew. Don’t judge- I’m sure I’m not the only one who works at their dining table! Speaking of sewing, my Grandmother made the seaside picture on the right of the photo using trapunto, a form of quilting popular back in the ’90s. It’s currently hung in our guestroom, and reminds me of the long line of sewists in our family.

When we moved to our new home, as soon as I finished cleaning, I started painting. I covered up the school bus yellow kitchen walls, and painted the sunroom, living room and office poo brown ceilings white. I scraped and scrubbed the elephant wallpaper border off the walls of Dan’s office, and painted over the deep red walls. Eventually I moved on to the main bathroom. The metallic copper colored walls and gold ceiling had to go. Along with the horrible wallpaper, which, one of my friends commented, looked like mold. 🙂

They must have used super strength glue, and obviously did not properly prep the walls before installing the wallpaper, because it came off in tiny little bits. Hundreds if not thousands, of tiny little bits.

Needless to say, after that time-consuming process, I didn’t even feel like tackling the grass-cloth in the master bedroom. So here we are, a year and a half later, finally ready to face the task of removing wallpaper once again. But this time I had help! Dan helped me peel and scrape off the grass-cloth. I started scrubbing off the residue, but it was getting late and I was tired. So I’m maybe a quarter of the way through scrubbing, and then I can move on to priming and painting. Yay! And phew!

All of this talk about working on the walls got me thinking about the walls in our lives. What kind of walls do we put up to hide, to avoid, to protect? Protective walls can be good. We all need shelter from the storms. But are we putting up walls to avoid people because we’re scared? Scared to talk to them? Scared to reach out in friendship, or deal with a relationship? Do we put up a wall to “block out” God? Are we scared to have faith? To consider depending upon someone other than ourselves? Are we afraid of what that faith, and relationship with God, with Jesus, might require of us?

Are you thinking of knocking down some of those walls? Of opening your heart and your mind to new relationships and possibilities? It’s easier than you think. Take one small step forward, crack open the door, throw open the window, and invite life in. Pray. It can be nothing more than a simple conversation, talking to God. But it can mean so much more. It can be the start, or the continuation, of an everlasting relationship. Are you ready to knock down some walls?

Look Up And Appreciate The Splendor

We’ve all experienced times in life when it seems like everything is good, maybe not perfect, but still pretty darn good. You may not be rich, but you’re rich enough, especially in the things that matter. You know that you’re loved, you’ve got a roof over your head, food in your belly, and you’re doing ok. Honestly, most of our life is probably lived like this.

Yet somehow, we become complacent, get used to the relatively smooth sailing as we go about our daily lives. We get caught up in the little problems and daily distractions of life. We forget to look up, and say thank you for this beautiful life. When is the last time you took the time to watch a beautiful sunrise?

Literally watched the sky start to light up from the horizon, with a little glow of orange and coral, until the color spreads, turning apricot into pink and purple streaks across the sky in front of you? Wow! What a beautiful way to start the day. Thank you Jesus!

No matter what stresses the day may bring, no matter what good news or bad gets brought to you today, life is good. God made it good. Appreciate the splendor, and beauty, and wonder of life. Look with the eyes of a child at every little thing, and appreciate the beautiful life you are living.

Is life completely perfect? Of course not, we won’t experience complete perfection until we’re in heaven. But we are certainly blessed, and receive gifts from God every day, in the people and world around us. Let the love into your heart, and let it shine out through the life you’re living.

Bloom Where You’re Planted

Dan and I watched a movie the other night called Passengers. It was about a guy on a spaceship that was travelling to an outpost to start a new life. He and all the other 5,000 passengers were placed in suspended animation in these special pods for the 90 year journey. Something went wrong with his pod, and he woke up on the ship with 89 years still left in the journey, rather than waking up 4 months before arriving at their destination as planned.

It was a very thought provoking movie, because I think we all go through periods where we struggle and rail against how things are versus how we thought they would be. As a child you think that adulthood will be this wonderful thing because you can do whatever you want, rather than just what your parents and teachers tell you to do. And it is a wonderful thing, but you have to deal with your responsibilities, so it’s not as easy as your childhood fantasy envisions.

As a young couple you imagine having children, and how awesome it will be to become parents. And it is awesome! But you cannot fathom just how overwhelming it can be until you’re living the reality. The complete and utter exhaustion you feel when your infant is waking up every two hours to nurse and you can only daydream about ever actually sleeping again. The unbelievably large number of times that you will have to clean pee, poo, and “spit up” off your baby, yourself, (and any and every) nearby surrounding. The utter defiance of your strong willed nearly two year old who no longer wants to wear what you picked out, but insists upon choosing her own outfits as she learns to assert her independence. Thankfully, these moments are balanced out by hearing your child excitedly exclaim “Mama!” or “Dada!” as soon as they see you. And the peace of feeling them contentedly snuggled into your arms or sitting on your lap. And the sheer delight of hearing them laugh or giggle, truly one of my favorite sounds in the world! And the overwhelming joy that fills your heart when they hug you, or give you wet, slobbery “smooches”, or say, “I love you”.

Don’t even get me started on how completely wonderful it is to experience these things as a grandparent. My heart nearly burst the first time Lila said “I love you” back to me! And the aching joy I felt when I had her giggling and laughing uproariously when we played “This little piggy” during a car ride, sustains me when we have to go months without flying up to visit.

Life can be very challenging. We all go through tough times where we worry about our family, our friends, our finances, our health, and every other situation that tests us. But constantly thinking that life would be better if only we lived, worked, had, or did something or somewhere else, robs us of the joy of loving where we are at.

Do you ever stop to consider that the trials you are going through are moments of learning? They are teaching you something, and preparing you for the next moment in life. Are you learning patience, compassion, forgiveness, and love? Are you gaining wisdom and experience so that you can deal with the next challenge in your life?

Instead of yearning for the next thing, the next place, the next person, appreciate the wonder of this moment in life. In other words, bloom where you’re planted! Don’t worry, life will keep on happening. And soon enough you’ll grow, leaves reaching toward the sun, growing stronger, and branching out.

What Are You Thankful For?

We all have troubles, and things that worry us: physical limitations and health scares; jobs (or lack thereof) and money issues; and any number of situations and problems among our families and friends. But don’t let that become the focus of your life.

Focus instead on the wonderful things in life, the things that you are grateful for, the things that make you happy. I am thankful for my faith. Unbelievably thankful! Even when there are struggles, and bad situations, it calms me to know that in the end it will all be ok. I don’t have to worry, it is in God’s hands. And I am constantly reminded of the goodness in life.

I can see my neighbors flag flapping in the breeze, amidst the palm trees as the sun rises this morning. And I know that despite any political or partisan bickering and nonsense, that I am blessed to live in the greatest country in the world.

As I reminisce about my nephew David’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, I am grateful for my family. We all flew in from Florida, Colorado, and Tennessee, or drove across the state of Michigan to meet up and celebrate the marriage, and to welcome Caitlin into our family. It was so much fun to spend time with people I love, to laugh and be silly! Photo booths are designed to bring out the silliness, so you should just embrace it and have fun (which we obviously did!)

I am grateful for my sweet husband, and our unconditional love. For his good heart, his strength, and all his “handyman” skills. For his willingness to dive in, work hard, and get things done. Even after years of working together to turn our old “fixer upper” into a beautiful home, he wasn’t phased by the idea of tearing down a non-load bearing wall in our new “fixer upper” home to open up the kitchen. Of course this means we’re living in a bit of a construction zone. And since we don’t have the money to replace the flooring throughout our house, we’ll be living with a holey floor for the foreseeable future. But that’s ok. We have a roof over our heads, and each other!

I am thankful for my parents instilling me with a strong work ethic. I am grateful for the blessings of intelligence, for the creativity and sewing talents God chose to give me.

I am so grateful for my beautiful, wonderful children, and their spouse and fiancée. I love seeing my children happy and blessed with people that they love. And I’m so, so happy that my daughter and son-in-law brought the blessing of Lila into our lives. This sweet granddaughter of ours is such a joy! When we FaceTime, it’s so cute to hear her ask “Where’s Grandpa?” if he’s not nearby when I answer my phone. She loves to have you sing nursery rhymes over, and over, and over again. It’s so fun to hear her giggle and belly laugh uproariously when we do “This little piggy” for the twentieth time. And to hear her sweet little voice ask for “A, B, C!” so that she can (try to) sing the alphabet with me. I love her quick hugs, and slobbery “smooches”, and to hear her say “I love you” back to me. She fills our hearts with joy, and I am so grateful for every moment that we get to spend with her, whether it’s running in circles around the hotel, or last minute snuggles before we checked out.

Do you let the wonder and curiosity and joy of playing and running in circles into your life? Do you appreciate the awesome beauty of the world around you? Do you pray and place your troubles in God’s hands? Do you feed your faith by attending Mass, reading The Bible, and living a prayer-filled and grateful life? God, gratitude, and happiness go hand-in-hand. Open your heart, cast your troubles upon Him, and live!

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to my sweet husband, and to all the Dad’s I know. Thank you for being such a great partner on the journey of parenthood. From the moment our babies were born, it’s been super obvious how much you love them, and how much they love you. You’ve been an inspiration to them, as well as a teacher of how to live, how to laugh, how to dive in and fix things, build things, keep trying, live fearlessly, speak your mind, be a gentleman, be a kind, loving, and wonderful human being.

Thank you for being a wonderful husband. Our children have (and in 8 months) will have successful marriages by hopefully following the example we have tried to set. Thank you for being my rock, for tolerating my sewing habit :-), for having the good grace to take photos of my creations for this blog, even when I get giggly about modeling. Thank you for having fun while modeling the shorts I made you, for making me laugh, for being my best friend and true love.

Thank you for knowing how important our faith is, for letting it be the foundation in our life and marriage. Thank you for being the shining light of love that you are.

I love you,