Core Truths

I’m going to share a bit of advice I have been giving for years…date up. Let me explain. Years ago, I had someone very close to me who was out there in the dating game.  For years, I watched this amazing, wonderful person date people who….well, just weren’t the right match.  In fact, over time, I found that she was dating people who really weren’t all that compatible and that she was putting up with an awful lot throughout the duration of her relationships.  I was puzzled.  Until finally, she had met someone…a friend.  When I asked about this friendship getting more serious, she quickly told me no, but then proceeded to tell me all the things she liked about this person.  He seemed to be just perfect for her! Then it hit me! She needed to date up! I realized, long after the fact, I had indeed dated up when I found my Mr. Right.  At the time I met the guy that would eventually become my husband, I was in need of some serious life change...

I have three words for you.  Love is waiting. A few years ago, I bought a t-shirt that has the words across the front, “Love is waiting.” To tell you the truth, I bought the t-shirt second hand at a thrift store.  I have never been a t-shirt wearing girl, but I had decided I would give it a try.  So one day, I went to the thrift store and bought a few shirts.  This one in particular wasn’t anything special at the time. At first, I thought about the words on the front being meaningful maybe for someone still anticipating finding Mr. Right.  You know, you’re out there, hopeful of meeting Prince Charming, and so you thin k to yourself, he’s out there, love is waiting.  At some point, the words took on a different meaning for me.  One day I thought, love is WAITING.  Like, “love is patient, love is kind”…love is waiting. When you finally found that Mr. Right and are eagerly awaiting that wedding night—love is waiting. When you are...

On this Mother’s Day, I am reflective and grateful for the gift of motherhood, and for all of the women who have been a mother to me.  I am grateful to my mom, who I am sure is the source of my own positive outlook.  I am grateful to all of the women who have mothered me over the years.  Women who have held me, consoled  me, led me, taught me.  They are each instrumental in who I am today.   And I am grateful for the many women I am blessed to walk with on this journey of motherhood.  Friends I can call anytime of the day or night, friends who have raised their children ahead of mine, and friends who are in the trenches with me now.  I could honestly not mom the way I do without all of these wonderful, special moms in my life. So today, I say happy Mother’s Day, moms…to all of the moms…to every of the moms.  What you do does not go unnoticed. Happy Mother’s Day to the mom who cried when she read a “positive” pregnancy test. ...

You ever get that feeling of “Oh, my gosh, what just happened? What did I do? What did I forget to do?” That feeling of “I can’t do it all.” That feeling where you think you’ve just had a “Mom Fail.” You don’t have to scroll through social media for very long or even talk to your best mom pal very often to see or to hear about it.  Is it because as mothers we are really failing that much or that often?  Most definitely not! It seems that we moms get this idea in our heads that we will do things perfectly, or we will do them right, or we can somehow juggle more balls than a professionally-trained circus juggler. I remember all too well my first big “Mom Fail.” Now I know there were some before this, and I have had my fair share since, but this is the day I learned I just couldn’t do it all (boy, was that a reality check!).  I was the proud mother of two sweet little ones; our son was not quite three, and our brand new baby daughter was maybe two o...

Seasons.  They come and they go.  Summer gives way to autumn, autumn gives way to winter, and so on.  We know this.  We get this.  We see a bare tree in the winter and rather than cutting it down saying it bears no fruit, we wait.  We wait until the spring knowing the weather will change and it will give way to another beautiful blooming season. I know this, and I have seen this. I remember when my husband and I were first married.  He was teaching, and I was attending college full-time and was working part-time as a bank teller.  We had a brand new apartment in a brand new complex, and we had all that brand new wedding stuff.  Life was good! Then we found out we would need to move back home to Louisiana for my husband to finish his teacher certification requirements.  Then we found out we were pregnant.   We moved back, my husband enrolled in the certification program, and found a teaching job…an hour from where we...

Oh, parents.  If you are reading this on Sunday night, I know you are tired.  I see you.  I am you.  We have spent countless hours shopping for matching dresses and shoes for the girls, a collared shirt our boys reluctantly agree to wear, maybe something new for mom and dad.  We have scoured the shelves for their favorite candies, and we have outdone ourselves on the size of the baskets.  We have cleaned and cooked and cleaned and put away the stuff in the kitchen.  We have bought eggs, dyed eggs, stuffed eggs, hidden eggs, found eggs, stepped on eggs, eaten eggs.  And now, we sit. As I sit thinking back on the past few days, I am literally in awe.  I am in awe and it has absolutely nothing to do with the outfits, the baskets, the food, or the eggs.   While all of those things are commonplace and business-as-usual for us, this year we made one dramatic change.  We decided not to travel out-of-state to spend the holiday with...

I can’t think of a better feeling than something being done.  Like finished.  Like you worked so hard on this particular goal or project and now it is complete.  I mean, that is good stuff.  But then there are other things…things that you complete, but then they just come right back…things that are never really done.  Like doing the dishes. You know what I am talking about…you rinse and wash, you load the dishwasher, you hand wash whatever doesn’t fit, you dry and put away…and then you finally step back, feeling happy and satisfied with a job well done.   And that’s usually when it happens…someone places a dirty dish in the sink! Back when I was growing up, I remember a poem my mom kept pinned to the cabinet next to the kitchen sink.  The poem begins, “Thank God for dirty dishes.”  Now, allow me to digress in a Sophia Petrillo moment as I offer you this backstory.  Picture it: the backwoods of Louisiana, 1989.  There wer...