No matter how many times it happens....

Being human, to a degree, means making mistakes.  It means forgetting.  It means being absorbed in oneself. And then a lesson comes along, for the umpteenth time and reminds you just what matters most.

I just found out that a very very dear friend lost her father in death recently.  So dear to me is she that I call her simply "Mama."  

Here I am worried about things that can be fixed, are daily worries that will never go away, and most certainly are transient.  And there she is mourning the loss of her father.  A loss that hurts like no other.

I wish so much I could just be with her right now and reach out and give her big hugs and kisses and tell her it will be alright.  I wish I weren't so blasted far away.  I wish I weren't so wrapped up in my own world that it took me so long to find out what she has been struggling with all these days since his death. 

Mama, I am sorry.  I am sorry for your loss and also sorry for being so busy I couldn't check in more often just to tell you I love you and if everything is okay.  

This follows a severe injury to a wonderfully unique friend that is so special to me that I respect fewer men more.  He was injured while working in his garage by an exploding aerosol can.  He is alive and making remarkable strides in healing but will be forever different.  Physically and mentally.  I will not elaborate further.  Those who know him know all they need to already.  Speedy healing, Timmy Bob.  We love you!! 

I have learned this lesson - the frailty of life and what is truly important - many times in my life.  And then daily life takes over and the lesson gets filed into the "Important but I will think about it later" file in the back of my very cluttered head.

Today I had that file reopened and what a blessing it was to have my eyes opened to look past my recent "troubles" into the face of real problems.

I am moving on a bit lighter for that.  Mama, I miss you and love you and I am with you heart and soul forever more - Love Pee Wee.

Did you park there?

Well, I had some fun playing with the blog tonight - design and title - as I was relaxing for the evening.  And I must say I had fun.  I hope you like it!

On a side note, here is a conversation in our home this morning:

DH: "Tawnya, come here."
Me: "Yes?"
DH (looking out the front window): "Did you park the Jeep** all the way down there?"
Me: (trying not to laugh at seeing Jeep all the way at the bottom of the driveway) "Uh I most certainly did not park down there.  I parked it in front of the garage and put the e-brake on.  Good thing it didn't slide into the street!"
DH:  It's slick out there! (pointing to the driveway of ice)

**This is a Jeep we got a good deal and paid for in full so I am so thankful we have an option to get me around while my dear Liberty Cleo undergoes surgery.  Then the green monster will have his day in the shop.

A couple of days ago, I got home from work.  The front end of my dear Cleo is totally dismantled.  Bumper off.  Headlights removed.  Brain disconnected.

Me (in shock):  "You took off her eyes!"
DH:  "It's better she doesn't see this!...And I disconnected her brain so she won't feel a thing either."

Who says we don't have a sense of humor.  Sometimes you have to laugh.  Sometimes you have to dance.  Sometimes laughter really is the best medicine.

But I still have it good.

What a rough winter it has been thus far.  DH has been trying his hardest to work.  And it's not every week. Which is desperately what we need.  And then....
1.  The jeep involuntarily hit some guard rail again.  Two accidents less than a year apart = $2000 deductible.
2.  New studded tires (live and learn, yes?) = $704.
3.  100,000 mile maintenance = Who knows?  Best guess = $1500.
4.  The torque converter decided to go kaput two days after new tires and body repair = $750.

But I don't have much to complain about.  It's only money as they say.  I just wish I could find some of it to pay for the parts we have yet to purchase to get the jeep running again.  But this gives me a chance to show myself patient and faithful.  And that lesson = PRICELESS.

But to save some money, perhaps I should move closer to work and ride a bicycle.  I wonder how much studded snow tires cost for a mountain bike?

Family Love

I made it to my niece's wedding in Mesa.  And she was so excited to have me there.  I guess I wasn't prepared for the overwhelming emotion as the day progressed to her wedding ceremony and then her becoming a wife.  I will never forget the overwhelming emotion of joy and tears as I watched her be walked out and down the aisle by her mother (her father could not make it from Colorado).  My big sister was giving her baby away as wife.  It was, as I said before, overwhelming.  I don't know how she did it.  I couldn't have.  She's still my baby who went from this....

To this....

To this...

Where does the time go?  

Congratulations Sammy!  I wish you and Lorin the best of everything!

One Way Ticket

I just realized I haven't shared the best news of all.  Mister is home for good.  That's right.  We booked a one way ticket home and he's here to stay.  I picked him up at the airport on Saturday afternoon.  There is not much more to be said except..YAY!  It's about time!

Sunshine and Love - Ode to Sammyantha

"We all grow better in sunshine and love."

For the past nineteen years, nearly twenty, I've been in love with a little girl and watched her grow.  My firstborn niece.  My little Sammyantha.  Only she's not so little anymore.

In two weeks, she'll become a wife and then one day possibly a mother of her own children.  It is a struggle for me to figure out where all those years went.  That little baby girl who threw her bottle into the Spokane River and sent her Auntie in after it.  Or whenever "Wink" by Neal McCoy came on would dance up and down uncontrollably from the first opening beat in her little diapered tushie.  The same little girl who asked for her favorite Reba song, Till You Love Me, by so sweetly asking "Want Sunlight Moonlight!" Or the same little girl that when I asked her which shoes we should buy her to match her new dress wanted the "black ones that make noise!" She was and is nothing less than a most special and charming little baby girl.

But when I turned away for but a moment, somehow, that beautiful little baby I held in my arms all those tender years grew.  The little girl who I tucked into my bed to sleep or held in my arms on the bus against my chest as she breathed ever so sweetly in and out calmly trusting me as she slept.  Oh how I long for those days one more time.

My little Sammy is all grown up.  And I for one wish she wasn't because I haven't been as much a part of her life the last ten years as I was the first ten - not even close. But I hope she knows how much I love her and think of her every day even if I don't always say it and even if I live thousands of miles away.

But the best part of it all is I will get to tell her in person in a couple of weeks.  This Auntie has herself a wedding to attend.  I can't wait to hold her in my arms just one more time before the man that stole her heart holds her forever as his wife.

Is this how my mom felt when I got married all those years ago?  It has to be.  I'm not even this little girl's mommy and it is killing me.  Forgive me if I cry.  Forgive me if she is still that little baby girl in my eyes.

I love being ME

I sat wondering just now what makes me so special to write a blog?  What goes on in my life that doesn't happen a million times over in everyone else's life?  Why do you need to read about it happening to yet someone else when you are already living it?

Then I realized something:  I am not just like everyone else.  My life is not just the same.  I am not just another life wandering around on Planet Earth.

I am me.  I am me.  I am a miracle and I am special.  I am beautiful and I am loved by Jehovah God, who created me.  He knows me as myself.  As the individual person I am.  He knows my heart, my thoughts, my desires and goals.  He knew me, and LOVED me, even before I was born.

Just by being born I am a miracle.  I had a  1:2500 shot of even being born.  The other 2,499 girls who had my birth defect never made it to birth.  They were never born.  But that wasn't me.  I was the one who made it.  Me.  And then there was the miracle of surviving being run over by a car on the freeway at 2 1/2 years old when I tumbled out and fell underneath.  Yes, indeed, being alive is a miracle.  Every day I wake up able is a miracle.  I need not look further for other miracles.

I love being ME.