What I Love About You Monday...Growing Up Edition

Friday night I had a dream (a nightmare, really) that I was eighteen again and had the chance to do it all over.  I felt completely wigged out, overwhelmed, and wanted nothing more than to go back to my forty year old self.  


I was walking with a faceless, nameless someone through what I think was a gymnasium while discussing my options and I still couldn't think of any one thing I really wanted to do differently. I didn't want a second chance and was relieved to wake up and realize that it was all just a dream and that I was actually still in the year 2011.  


And I don't think it takes a genius, a dream dictionary, or a shrink to interpret that one.... 


I want to keep on being me. 


And that's a good thing.  


I think growing older gets a bad rap.  And while I realize that I still have quite a few milestone birthdays yet to hit, I'm finding that I am growing more fond of me as the years roll by.  I like the woman I am now, at forty, a little more than the one I was at thirty and a whole lot more than the baby faced one I was at twenty.  

So today, for this edition of What I Love About You Monday, I think I'll list a few of the things I have come to love about growing older/up...

~The valuable life lessons I've learned that could have never been taught in a classroom or by reading a book.  

~The thinking about something that seems to have only happened just a few years ago and being hit with the realization that it was more like twenty years ago.  It doesn't really make me feel old.  It makes me feel that I have acquired a true past...a history...and the wisdom to know which things worked and which ones didn't.

~The ability to stay home on a Friday or Saturday night and feeling perfectly happy and content instead of like I'm missing out on all the excitement and fun that is surely being had elsewhere in the world without me.

~The knowing when to speak up and when to keep my mouth shut. (at least most of the time anyway)

~The realization that while traveling the world is a wonderful experience (and wanting to do lots more of it), there is no place like home and it has always, and most likely forever will be, my most favorite place to be.   

~The comfort I feel in my own skin that I just didn't feel when I was younger.  I am much more forgiving and accepting of myself now and have stopped trying to make my body be something it was not meant to be.  

~The way I have learned to forgive by realizing that nobody is perfect and holding onto grudges only hurts myself.  

~The ability to relate to so many different people on so many different levels because I have been where they are.  

~The wisdom to know that sometimes things just have nothing to do with me, personally, being able to suck it up, put it behind me, hold my head high and carry on.  It has taken me a long time to get here. 

~The good memories....so many priceless memories that far outweigh the bad and that I hope to only continue to add to and to never, ever lose...

What I Love About You Monday...Fall Edition

I adore getting up each morning before the sun when the looming darkness is still gracing me with its presence.  Except that I don't.  At all.  Not even a tiny smidgen.  In fact, it kinda makes me want to go all medieval on somebody's arse. 


Maybe my memory is getting foggy but didn't daylight savings time used to only be half the year and now it's like eight months? And who are we saving the daylight for exactly because I kinda need to use it now. Whose idea was this?  I need to send them some hate mail a letter informing them how absolutely absurd this idea is especially since our school board had that stellar idea of starting our elementary school kids  at o seven bright and thirty this year.  Yes, yes I am still harping about this.

Oh, but wait.  This is Monday which means I'm supposed to talk about something that I love again.  And whose idea was this? Because I seem to be struggling with the concept.  Oh that's right, it was mine.  And since hardly anybody actually reads this stuff anyway  this is my blog I suppose I could change the rules and just have a bitch session each Monday. 


But then I would develop the reputation of being curmudgeonish  and that's never attractive.  I mean, just the word itself, curmudgeon,  is unattractive, don't you think?   I'd rather be known as jovial.  Okay, that's a stretch.  What about gracious?  Yes, I'll go with that. And a gracious person is "pleasantly kind" and "benevolent" ohh, I like that one too according to the online definition. 


So who/what should I give a big loving shout out to today?


Since it finally seems to have arrived here in my neck of the woods (at least temporarily) I think I'll go with Autumn aka fall.

Some Things I Love About Fall... 

~Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte. It is happiness in a cup. 

 ~I can once again get in my car after it's been sitting in a parking lot for awhile without burning a layer of skin off my hands on the door handle or seatbelt buckle.

~The clothes...boots, jeans, hats, cute jackets, scarves, hoodies... 

~Monday Night Football.  BwaHaHaa!!!  NOT.  Just seeing if you were paying attention. 

~Candy corn.  I've already consumed a bag this year.  I did have some help though.  I only ate three quarters of  it myself.  

~The beautiful colored leaves.  They are mostly still green here but soon my view will look like this again...

~Halloween.  I think we should have more days throughout the year where nobody questions your sanity if you wear whiskers and a tail while handing out candy to the superheroes, muppets, fairies and ninjas who show up at your door with a giant plastic pumpkin asking "Trick or Treat?"  Have you ever messed with a kid and said, "Trick!"  Yeah, me neither because that would be mean. And curmudgeonish. Spellcheck really doesn't appreciate me using that word, curmudgeonish, or spellcheck.  It wants to be called spell check (two words) but I like it better as one word because that's just how I roll.  

~We get to "fall back" (eventually!) and regain our hour that was stolen from us eight months back when we were forced to spring forward by the evil springing forward conspirators and instead of waking to looming darkness, I will awaken to a ray of sunlight streaming through my window and will leap out of bed with a bright smile and a song.  Okay, that's pushing it... A lot.  

But I do love fall.  Don't you?  :)

What I Love About You Monday...Old Books Edition

As far back as I can remember, I have always had a thing for books. Library day in elementary school was something I looked forward to with much anticipation.  Not only did I love books and reading but in the library everyone was expected to be quiet which was a huge relief to the extremely shy and introverted kid that I was. 


And the book fair?  Was heaven on earth. 


The book fair came to Dracen's school last week and he, as he always is, was very enthusiastic about buying himself some new books.  He knows there will never be a negotiation (which he may actually find disappointing since he is a born negotiator) when asking me for book fair money. It simply makes my heart smile to see him get excited about books even if they are filled with gross Ripley's Believe It Or Not stuff or pull-out posters of great white sharks.  I just love having books around me even if they aren't ones I'm particularly interested in myself.  


There is a thrift/consignment/antique place that I love to visit and the last time I was in there I got carried away when I found a booth full of books for a dollar a piece...even the hardcovers. I was in book heaven. No doubt I would have come out with more if I could have carried them. I've found that I love old books even more than I do new ones which is what this edition of What I Love About You Monday is all about...

What I Love About Old Books...

~The smell.  And I don't even know how to describe it but if you've ever stepped foot in a library(and who hasn't?) then you know it.

~Handwritten inscriptions in the front.  I love imagining who these people were and what relationship they shared.  Found this in one of the books I recently bought for a dollar...

~You never know what little treasures you may stumble upon while reading one...little notes scribbled in the margin, an old newspaper ad, a postage paid comment card from the publisher, dated 1948.

~The way they take me back in time and give me a little glimpse as to what if may have been like to live a hundred years ago.  I bought this book (copyright 1900)at an antiques mall when we were in Maine in August...

~Feeling that I am most likely the only person in the world currently reading the book since it was published over one hundred years ago and is now out of print.

~Their mere presence in a room brings a feeling of coziness, comfort and warmth to the space. 

~They are magical.  Or at least they feel that way to me.  There is just something about holding a book in your hands and reading the words of someone long gone yet truly feeling a deep connection to them because you understand their words so much that you could have written them yourself.

What's your favorite old book?      

What I Love About You Monday...Blogging Edition

Friday night the boys were getting ready to go to the football game with their popaw when we tortured them immensely by forcing them to put on some long pants  told them they needed to put on some long pants because it was pretty chilly outside.


Dracen proclaimed loudly from his room that he did not have any!  So I went back there to assess the situation and prove him wrong only to have him put on pair after pair that gave the impression he was about to go wade the creek for crawdads. "When did all these pants turn into high waters?!"  I demanded. 


We finally found one pair that was not too short but they had a giant tear down the front. So it was between the Opie Taylor goes fishin' with Pa look or the I got in a fight with a cat and lost look. I thought the cat fight look would provoke less teasing so that's the one he went with.


And then Saturday afternoon we all went on a hunting trip. Hunting for pants and jeans and hoodies and such. Turns out Dracen is right in between a size 7 and a size 8 because we had one heck of a hard time finding any pants of an acceptable length.  We did find one pair of jeans in a 7x so this in between 7 and 8 thing must be a common problem. 


A common problem that Old Navy is not down with or up on or whatever because the difference between their boys size S and boys size M is like the difference in a 6 pointer and 10 pointer. Not that I'm a hunter or anything ( I can't even kill a creepy spider without a twinge of guilt) but I've certainly been around my share of them enough to know that's a pretty big difference.  


But I'm not here to talk about hunting or killing spiders.  It's Monday again which means I must talk about something else that I love.  And those two things do not apply or belong here. 


Today I'm going to talk about something that I've been doing on a regular (almost daily) basis for over a year and a half now and that thing is blogging!  

What I Love About Blogging...

~It helps me sort through some of the clutter in my mind. I'm not an overly verbal person so it tends to get crowded up there when I don't write some of this stuff down.  

~The connections I have made with other bloggers or at least the connections I feel that I have made.  Reading someone's personal blog makes you feel like you know that person even if you've never met them or even exchanged an email with them. Kinda like reality t.v., only much better. 

~Having someone leave a comment telling me that they actually got something from what I wrote.  That alone is enough to keep me doing it indefinitely. 

~The fact that it makes trying times go down a bit easier because immediately upon hearing that I'm going to need not one, but two root canals or in the midst of locking myself out of the house twice in the same day, that little voice says, "but think of the great blog fodder this is going to give you!".  

~The things it opens up in me.  Most of the time I have no idea what I'm going to write about when I come here so I am always amazed on the days the words seems to pour out of me and even more amazed when those words come from a place so deep that they bring tears to my eyes.  

~The many things I learn here from other bloggers like how to paint old furniture like a pro or that I'm not the only one who has a designated sock basket for all those poor, lonely socks that are constantly losing their "sole" mates.  

~Having someone I don't see often start talking to me about something they read on my blog and wondering for a moment how in the world they knew that before realizing that they read my blog through the "networked blogs" link on facebook. 

~The sense of fulfillment it gives me.  I'm not getting paid to do this and I don't have anyone standing over me with an assignment and a deadline but there is some sort of invisible force that keeps pulling me back here and forcing me to write something. Anything.  And that is a very good thing.

What I Love About You Monday...Jesus Edition

I am always being struck with these ideas for posts, usually when I'm driving, but most of the time I end up losing them somewhere between here and there and then find myself sitting here at this screen once more and wondering where exactly I misplaced that great idea I had yesterday.  


Well, I had one of those ideas last week and it actually made it home with me so I came straight here and put it down in writing so I would not forget it.  Then after a couple of days I began self doubting... questioning whether or not this was really the great idea I thought it was. 


I asked myself,  Who really cares or wants to read about the things you love?  But then I heard a whisper from God saying, Remember what I taught you about Love?  It is the single, greatest, most important thing you can do in life...to love others as I have loved you....


And if I've learned anything in my forty years it's to listen when God speaks.


So here I am.  Oh but wait, I haven't actually told you the whole idea yet, have I? It's simple really. The idea is to start out each week, on Monday, with a post about something or someone I love and what exactly it is I love about that someone or something.  It may not always be sappy or deep.  Sometimes I may feel like listing all the reasons why I love chocolate ice cream or that quirky commercial about credit reports, or my morning coffee...


But today, for the very first edition of What I Love About You Monday I'm going to do my very best to list at least ten reasons why I love Jesus.  How's that for putting myself out there?  Whew, I'm a little nervous but here goes...

I Love Jesus Because...

His love for me has never faltered even at times in my life when I went astray and did not even love myself.  

He's always right here when I need to talk to him about something.

He held me and carried me in my darkest hour of grief making it possible for me to carry on when I just didn't think I had it in me.

He is forgiving in all things.

No problem is too great for him.

No problem is too small for him.  

He loves children.

He loves animals.

He is timeless.

He allows me to make my own mistakes and waits patiently for me to come to my senses. 

He is the son of God.

He suffered and died for me...and for you too.

He gives my life meaning.

He has given me, promised me, something to look forward to...

something to strive for...live for...something beyond my

 wildest dreams and greatest expectations...

Eternal Life. 

I hope you know him too. He's a pretty good friend to have.  :) 

...and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
 and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.
And the second is this:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no 
commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)