Crazy

So I just might be crazy....I'm taking a road trip to Chicago with my kids...yes, that's right...I'm driving, with my kids, in the car, 1500 miles. I really do love road trips. I love to watch the country change as I go, I love the smell of the air, the beautiful farms in the midwest, the sunrise (and the sunset), and I love how you can see for miles in every direction. So, here's to craziness....and to going home.

I caught this picture driving home the other night...Sam was so excited to see a rainbow. He said we should drive until we got there, and it's too bad we can't really do that. It would be so fun.

Reunion

I love family reunions! You get to see all your cousins you haven't seen in years and you know everyone is commenting on how much weight you've gained during the last year....just kidding, well...not really. I can say that I had a lot of fun, but my kids....I think it was the highlight of the year! For any of you who know Sam, he LOVES cars....I mean, LOVES them. His universe revolves around them. So we're eating dinner and we hear this "Vrroooommmm" sound; Sam stands up, reminding me a little of a dog, ears raised, who knows something exciting is about to happen. Then from around the corner comes this ride-on four wheeler and he says "MOM! What is that?" Needless to say, dinner was forgotten and I didn't see him for over an hour. It was heaven on earth. He also jumped endlessly on the trampoline. Did you ever see such a happy face? Meanwhile, Charlie, who is extremely shy, went and sat on all the men's laps! I don't know why, but he likes to be one of the guys. He doesn't want anything to do with the women...weird, but ok, whatever! Uncle Tim was his favorite! Lucky for me, they got so worn out they were asleep the second their heads hit the pillow...I love nights like that.

Will it EVER End???

I was talking to my sister-in-law this morning about my dishes...they are like a dragon I cannot slay. They never go away...no matter how many times I clean them! I'm trying to find purpose in it...but really, it does no good. It's probably the plight of every housewife (that and laundry), so I shouldn't complain. I guess I just have to choose to be happy while doing them...ha ha! I look forward to the day when I can assign dish duty to my kids; now that's something to be happy about! And won't they make cute little dish washers?

I'm giving in...

Okay, so I'm giving in....to blogging. I've resisited, but I can't do it anymore. So here I go!

Food for Thought

I'm one of those people who believes that happiness is our destiny. Granted, it took me awhile to come to this conclusion. My father helped, always reminding me that I could CHOOSE happiness wherever I was. I never believed it...until now. Looking back, I was always searching for happiness in my life, waiting till I could drive, or until I could date, be done with school, be married, or have kids....still, it always seemed just out of my reach. Until one day I realized that in all my searching I never understood that there was evidence of happiness all around me-the source was within me! I just had to CHOOSE it! I heard a quote once that said, "Striving for happiness is a long, hard journey with many challenges. It requires eternal vigilance to win the victory." To me that means that happiness is more of a pursuit...we have to make a deliberate decision to be happy and then carry it out...simply do it, no matter how hard it may seem. I knew a man who, everytime you asked him how he was, said "Never better"...even when you knew he was facing struggles. He CHOSE to realize that life would always include hard things, but there was a purpose to them; they would make him stronger and bring him closer to God. We can choose, amid all our struggles, to take the bad with the good, to make up our minds (as Abe Lincoln said) to be happy. Practice makes perfect...and I intend to practice.