Pressing On

When I moved away from Arizona a little over four years ago one of the hardest things, besides moving away from my family was moving away from my close friends. I have an incredible circle of friends who are like family to me. They are sisters who love me, encourage me, speak the truth to me and challenge me to grow. I’m forever grateful for them.  When I left Phoenix someone said to me, “You will never be able to replace that group of women” and I agreed. I wasn’t looking to replace them. In fact, for a time I had my guard up not wanting to make new friends because I didn’t want that pain of having to say goodbye again. The good news was, I didn’t  leave them, I  just changed addresses. Three times even! But, with technology and social media I don’t miss a beat. We still stay in contact, I follow along with what they have going on in their lives and they in mine. However, I do miss that face to face connection that comes by sitting across the table over a cup of coffee or lunch

 Someone asked me the other day why I get up so early in the morning. Is it a choice? “You set your alarm for 5:00am?” I think the implication was there really wasn’t a reason for it. I don’t have an outside job to get to. I don’t have kiddos at home that require getting fed and sent off to school. So, why the urgency to get on with the day?  I explained my reasoning and how it had become a habit which has now developed into a lifestyle. It hadn’t always been this way. In fact, I remember sleeping in until my husband kissed me good bye in the morning on his way to work. I had even bought him a little pop up light for his sock drawer so he wouldn’t wake me with the over head light while trying to match up his socks. He still had a few failures that he would notice midday with unmatched socks.   I learned to enjoy mornings several years ago when I did have to get to work early. I love watching the sunrise and the world wake up. There is just something about the hope in a brand n

It’s still dark out and I’ve only had half a cup of coffee but I’m wide awake. The big house is quite, with the exception of the humming appliances and the cooing of  the sweetest baby in the world.  I’m sitting here holding my grandson. My grandson! He is as perfect as they come. Pink, thick and squishy. He makes the cutest noises as he sleeps in my arms. And smells so good. What is it about baby skin and peach fuzz? Mom and Dad are resting from what I’m assuming was a rough night. Oh the circle of life. I do remember those days of sleepless nights. I wish I had someone tell me then not to blink. Because 30 years will fly by. This little one will be in school, blink- driving, blink-graduating college, blink- getting married, blink- having his own child.   You know what? Knowing what I know now, I would still blink. Because this next stage in life is pretty amazing too. Every stage in life is a gift. It’s meant to be lived out abundantly and enjoyed to the full!  So today,

This is the time of year that I love. The season change from Summer to Fall. The weather has cooled down some and I can finally go outside for longer than ten minutes, without getting sweating armpits, my face melting off causing me to look like Alice Cooper or my hair turning into a Brillo pad; from the intense humidity that comes with living in South Texas. It’s easy to say, I’m so grateful for this time of year. During hurricane Harvey I watched so many people lose their homes and businesses. It was devastating! We were very fortunate that our home wasn’t effected.  Although I experienced what some might call survivor’s guilt, I was and still am so very grateful for God’s protection over us. I am also grateful that I was here and able to help some of those that were effected by the destruction of Harvey. It changed me. I’m very grateful. Our daughter came to visit a few weeks back. We had made these plans a while ago, she had some personal days to use up and Jim was traveli

I was reminded last night of the importance of story telling. Not just any story but our stories. The difficult ones that we thought just might break us. The challenging ones that grew us and of course the God stories that changed us. God is woven into all of our stories whether we realize it or not because He is the author of our story. The movie I watched last night was a heart breaking true story told by a little boy’s mom. Their two year old son was dying of leukemia and because she didn't want to answer a billion text messages she started a blog for all to read. That blog got into the hands of a total stranger who had been living for herself and her career while missing every opportunity with her family.  Through the heart breaking story of a mom losing her only child, another mom realizes that her family was beginning to slip away from her. She had walked away from God, was putting her business and career above everyone else, had become disconnected from her husband 

When we were in Hawaii a few months ago we went on this incredible hike. Maybe you've heard of Koko Head Stairs. It's a crater that was once used as a military lookout during World War 2. A railway was created and used to haul cargo and supplies up to the top. Today it is used by many for hiking and has over 1000 stairs. Some are spaced together fairly tight while others are spaced pretty far apart. So it is not your everyday run of the mill stairway. It gets tough and not only is it steep but there is a section that acts as a bridge with a 40 foot drop below. The space between the railroad ties in this section is wide. Meaning it would be real easy to slip through and fall 40 feet down. This was the biggest challenge for me. I don’t think I have a fear of heights until I’m put in one of these situations.  The hiking was going great, I was ahead of my husband and feeling pretty confident until we got to the center of said bridge. I lost my footing momentarily and end

This morning I watched a truck pull over to the side of the road, an elderly driver got out, walked around to the passengers side while a younger man changed places with him. Interesting. I wondered what made that transition happen? Did the older gentleman decide he shouldn't be driving? Maybe he couldn't see well. Maybe it wasn't his car so he wasn't familiar with how to operate it. Or maybe the younger man was a back seat driver and kept telling the older one how to drive so the older man finally said, “You want to drive? Here you go”. Or maybe it was like the episode in Everyone Loves Raymond where Frank drives so bad they take his keys from him. Maybe the younger one in fear of his life and everyone on the sidewalk just said, “That’s it pull over, I’ll drive!” I will never know. But it caught my attention as well as my curiosity. I continued to wonder if it was a fight. What was the rest of the ride like for those two? Did they argue and bicker about who should

It has gotten pretty warm here in the last couple of months. The humidity does not help. In fact, it makes it that much more unbearable. That doesn't stop us from our weekend runs though. We have learned to just get out there as early as we can to beat the heat. Annie doesn't realize the impact of the heat until we get home and she tries to cool down. We have a great little park about two miles from the house that has a splash pad. When you step on the center button, several fountains pop up and water splashes around us. When we first took Annie to help her cool down, she wanted none of it. I was shocked, with her being a Labrador; I thought she would love it. So, I gently would nudge her into the water so it would at least hit her side. Then we walk over to the drinking fountain and she is able to drink from the short one, which she does not protest. I usually run it a bit before I drink after her.  The last few times we have gone, she senses when we will get to those

We had a full weeks vacation to Hawaii last week and I don't even know where to begin to tell you. It seems most of our vacations the past several years have either been moving, visiting family, or moving the kids to and from college. We’ve had some very nice get-aways for a few days but this seven days away was a breath of fresh air.  With all access communication these days it's hard to unplug and relax. I feel like it takes a day or two to really get in the groove of vacation. I was so thankful for this time away with my hubby. He had bought this trip for me for Christmas so I had been anticipating it for six months. We had been to this island before when we were just a young married couple. So it was a blast to go back and see it through more “mature” eyes. We also did more “mature” things this time around. Like go to bed before the sunset our first night. In our defense we had been up since 2:45 am to catch an early flight so by the time  we got settled into our h