Yesterday was the 5th of May and it started out warm and sunny. My youngest daughter was yearning for some ‘alone’ time with mommy so she was up and dressed early on a Saturday, hoping that her older sister would do her usual sleeping in until afternoon and would not go with us. She did not disappoint.

So the girl and I were off early for our day out. We started out at Target because she wanted to replenish her supply of tights and net stockings. They have them at Target for just $5 each, which was just perfectly in my price range.

After shopping around, we went out to lunch, just the two of us, which is probably her favorite part of the outing, almost on equal par with the foray into Barnes & Noble.

It was late afternoon by the time we got home after additional stops at Walmart and the grocery store. The sky had darkened and was looking ominous as we unloaded the car and by the time we had put away stuff and I got dinner started, it started pouring. Not one of those light spring showers, it was the curtain of water kind of rain, making our plans to grill something in celebration of Cinco de Mayo kind of moot.

So they had their chili dogs cooked stove top and I made a quick vegetable curry out of the eggplants and cauliflower that I was going to grill.

Today, it’s still cloudy and damp outside but we’re hopeful that it will dry up enough that we can continue with our cook out plans.

How’s your weekend going?

Do you remember what you were doing two decades ago? Well, almost two decades. I do! I remember exactly what I was doing 19 years ago.

19 years ago, I was huge as a house! No, really! I was so big, I could hardly move. 11 months after my first baby, I was delivering my second. Yeah, crazy, right?

It was a crazy time, it was exhausting, but it was also the most rewarding and joyous times. Ah, I miss having babies.

Now, she is a young lady and still screaming for attention even when she’s not trying. That’s just the kind of young woman she is. She’ll make your head turn even if you don’t mean to. And don’t let her flash a smile at you, you’ll be sunk for sure. And if you ever get a chance to talk to her, you might as well have heard the sirens sing. You won’t be going anywhere else.

Everyday since she was born, she’s made us proud. Even then, as a new born she garnered attention as people came to gaze at the biggest baby at the nursery that day. lol! I supposed we should have realized that omen was just a taste of what was to come. She commands just by BEING.

To my baby girl, HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY!

That I love you, is a given. That you are my daughter, is a blessing that I am thankful for everyday.

It’s official. Both college girls are back to school and we are left with an empty nest again. Well, almost empty…

We have one daughter left at home and she is loving being back to the ‘only child’ status again. Although she was glad to see her sisters (I think), she was a bit grumpy while her sisters were home, having two more people telling her what to do. Now, it’s back to having her way again.

She still won’t take a photo with me and her sisters though, so instead she took this photo of me and her big sister yesterday, on the way to dropping her off to school. I was getting so sleepy driving that we had to stop and stretch and wake up.

I just love the color of the woods in winter, don’t you?

I saw this on facebook. It was getting a lot of ‘likes’ and actually, I liked it too. Very few would disagree with the saying. It says:

“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the one’s who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”
~Unknown

Source: Facebook - Lessons Learned in Life

We all certainly have friends who are like family. Sometimes, they even seem more like family. They are so much like us that it’s a wonder we are not attached physically.

But you know what, the older I get the more I realize that there are great friends, but there is also family and family always trumps friends.

The people in you life who will want you in theirs, the ones who accept you for who you are and the ones who would do anything to see you smile and love you no matter what…

They are your friends when they do all that for you for a time. We all move on in life and very few of our friends will be there from beginning to the end. Enjoy the phase of your life with them. You will treasure them forever.

Now your blood, your family, they have no choice but to do all that. Your family had no choice whether they want you in their life or not, but they accept you for who you are and love you no matter what anyway. They would do anything for you including make you smile, make you cry, and make you so frustrated you wonder what you’re doing with these people.

Sometimes you may wonder how you even became part of ‘that’ bunch. They are so nothing like you. Your friends are more like you.

But the thing is, your friends only reflect how you are on the outside. They are like mirrors. That’s why you are so much alike.

Family is what makes you tick inside. Family is all that gory, unsightly stuff inside you that somehow makes you work the way you do. Family is what makes you able to see, to feel, to breath, to think, to move.

Family is what makes you who you are inside so that you can look good outside.

So maybe next time you think your friends are your ‘real’ family, think again. No matter how awful or how diseased your family, it’s what’s inside you and when you don’t take care of what’s inside you, nothing you do outside will ever work right.

Tick, tock…