Someone sent me a request on facebook to write 16 things that you love. Here is my attempt, although I am sure I will have more than 16 things, seeing as how I am the most excited person I know. I may add more things to it later. Here goes...
1-I love the feel and look of each different season. Weather never depresses me. I enjoy every cloud, and every drop of rain, and every ray of sunshine. I love fireflies, spring flowers, fall leaves, and snow...
2- I love the way music makes me feel inside. How it changes you, inspires you, leads your feelings. I love it.
3- I love Christmas. Nativity scenes. Christmas music. Christmas cartoons. Christmas trees. Christmas lights. Christmas eve. Candelight services. Christmas morning. Christmas dinner. I love Christmas.
4- I love to hold my arm out of the window and let it coast up and down to the rhythm of the wind.
5- I love humor. I would rather someone say that I am funny, than say I am pretty. If you can make me laugh, I will love you forever. If I can make you laugh, then you must have a good sense of humor :).
6- I love to help people when they are at the hardest times in their lives. I want to hold hands and jump headfirst into someone else's grief or anguish, so they won't have to be alone.
7-I love music and TV trivia. I am, dare I say, a music genius, although I am 80's and hard rock genre heavy. But on 80's TV trivia, I am unstoppable.

8- I love things that are beautiful. I love to see beautiful things, make beautiful things, and somehow live a beautiful life.

9- I love smells; the dryer exhaust that pushes the smell of fabric softener into the outside air. Burning leaves. The scent of my husband, especially when he wears cologne. Bread baking. Pantene shampoo. Cocoa butter. The ocean and salty air. Fresh cut grass. Babies. Barbecue, etc...

10-My children, I love my children. I think they are the funniest, most spirited two little girls in the world. I love watching them learn, and watching them learn to love.

11-I love when people tell me what they really think. I love authenticity and truth, even if it erupts from an argument. I love to know people. I love to understand.

12-I love people who serve, who use their gifts, who inspire others to do the same. I love people who sincerely give their lives over to the service of others.

13- I love my husband. I really do. I love that he knows me and gives me the freedom to be who I am, and loves me anyway.

14- I love to eat in restaurants. Bring me food, drink, and pleasure, and then clean up after me... Who doesn't love that.

15- I love to explore the unknown. Including new routes, new places, new groups of people, new everything. I want to soak it up.

16-I love to think about life and people. I love to remember the past and imagine the future. I am a dreamer and I love to help other people capture their own dreams.

17 - I love innocence and purity. It is rare, but it is exceptional in its raw form.

18- I love the way light changes things. I like to see it dance on the water, or dissappear at dusk. Sunshine, candlelight, lamplight, it all shows different sides of the same object. Not to mention, headlights and tailights on cars at night... they are the coolest.

18 - I love my Saviour, my faith. I love the plan God has had for me. I love that He gave me what I did not deserve, and everyday continues to change me. I am sincerely grateful to Him.

These Small Hours...

I am listening to my children play with each other. Noelle just came over to me and said. "Mom, I am being a good big sister right now. Sometimes I am mean to Jolie, and sometimes I am really nice. I am being nice right now." Jolie is pretending to be a little kitten and Noelle is taking care of the 'itty bitty kitty'. That is the name of the little kitten at their Nana's house. Sometimes I get so mad at myself because I let these moments slip by. I forget to stop and look at them, to memorize them. In my heart I know my girls are going to leave one day, but as a friend of mine has titled her blog, these are "long days and short years."

Why am I in such a hurry? What is it that I am running toward? I don't want to regret a moment. The other day I was thinking about this very same thing and so I caught myself just staring at Noelle. She looks so much like me that I have memories of myself at her age, and sometimes I really feel like I am looking at myself. It makes me sad. So, I just watched Noelle, as she talked to her little piggy. (Piggy has been around since she was 16 days old. He is a member of the family. I will cry just as hard as Noelle if we ever lose Piggy. ) Anyway, I was just staring at her. I was looking at the curves of her face. The little way her eyes twinkle when she talks. Her sweet little half grin. The way her pretty brown hair falls in her face and dangles in a slight curl. The sound of her voice and her teeny tiny little lisp. And then... I burst into tears. She is so funny because she saw me and told me to stop crying. She said "Mommy, don't you remember that I told you that adults don't cry?!?!" This was in reference to another time she caught me crying while I was watching a sad and triumphant episode of "Little House on the Prairie". She said in exactly these words..."MOMMY, STOP CRYING! Adults don't cry mom! They are happy and they turn on the Christmas tree, and clean, and turn on the fire, and feed us food, and cook. Stop CRYING!" So of course I laughed at her both times. She is a card. I want to hear her little voice in my head forever. I want to remember everything. But I can't. I won't. And it makes me sad.
I love these small hours. I want to catch them like fireflies, put them in a jar, and watch them glow. "Our lives are made of these small hours, these little wonders, these twists and turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours still remain..." Thank you Rob Thomas. I couldn't have expressed it any better. BTW, that song is #3 on my play list. Bye, for this little moment. It's time to snuggle with Jolie-bear.