I so want to enter Thanksgiving with an attitude of gratitude and not one of defeat.  Holidays are a big part of my family culture.  Especially since holidays feature food. (I cannot stress enough how much we value food…LOL.)  But it is not just the food.  No, the holiday season is about spending time with the people you love.  And we are missing so many faces in our family this Thanksgiving. Grief adds a different spin on treasured traditions.  Listen, I thought last year was so weird getting together via Zoom.  We saw what each family had whipped up.  We prayed together.  Made fun of each other and logged off. …

Writing a series on things I am grateful for has REALLY made me think.  I needed to focus on positivity.  I had to shift my thinking.  My self-reflection brought some clarity to my relationship with others and tendency to accept less than the best. You see…I am a giver.  It flows out of me without a second thought.  I suppose that is why I chose a helping profession.  I get paid to do what comes naturally to me.  I tend to form bonds with people that are in need.  It satisfies the part of me that wants to fix and help in any way possible.  Since giving and helping are…

Constructing assembly required purchases usually does not intimidate me.  I figure if I follow the instructions, things will turn out like they are supposed to.  My final product will look like the item pictured on the box….most of the time.  Recently, I had the opportunity to put my construction skills to the test.  Bible Study Mama happily volunteered to help with the heavy lifting.  I did not even have to ask.  She considers herself a jack-of-all-trades.  Our first project started off just fine.  Except for the fact that my assistant was ready to put it all together without looking at the instructions.  I had to remind her that the instructions…

Okay!  Okay!  I was just like you.  Until three or four years ago, I thought that onesies were only for babies too.  I mean, how practical would it be for me to wander around the house in a one-piece outfit?  They just make sense for babies.  So, I left it to the littles until I experienced my own little slice of onesie heaven. Part of my reluctance to get into onesies is that they were not really made for big girls.  Until they were.  I am an avid online shopper.  Long-sleeved onesies for winter popped up during one of my shopping scrolls.  And they came in my size.  I clicked…

Did you know that we cannot do life alone?  Well, we COULD but that usually does not turn out very well.  We were created for relationships, and no matter how much people may annoy or challenge us…we need them.  Friendship takes many forms through the years.  While I have not ever been one to claim tons of friends, I have noticed that my friendship circler has gotten smaller.  Closer. More intimate.  Although I am introverted around unfamiliar people, I am all the way live with my friends.  Loud…dramatic…inappropriate.  I am fully myself, and I am sure that they would not have it any other way.  Each of them was placed…

In the past, I have been guilty of burning the candle at both ends.  Downtime just did not sit well with me.  My days were jam-packed.  I moved from one activity to the next.  I worked and worked and worked.  I wore myself into the ground and was proud of it.  If a man does not work, he does not eat.  You have seen me.  I make sure I can eat.  I kept my mind and my hands busy. While running this way and that way, I ran into a brick wall on the day that Tomica died.  When I got the call that her health had taken a serious…

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 NLT Let me give you a little disclaimer.  I am not big on crying.  Being dramatic…YES!  Crying….NO!  So, imagine how thrown off I have been this year with all the tears that have been shed.  I have cried longer, harder, and louder than I could have ever imagined.  Sniffling…snotting…and snorting.  It has been ugly.  And yet, I am so grateful for the tears. I can imagine how much worse things would be for me if I tried to keep all that emotion bottled up. …

Reading has long been a passion of mine.  There is something about the written word.  It transports you to another place.  It deposits you at different times.  It challenges your beliefs and expands your mind.  Bible Study Mama was smart.  Buying books for a voracious reader gets mighty expensive mighty quickly.  Although she always bought me whatever book I wanted, she also took advantage of our local libraries. We regularly visited the downtown library.  Let me tell you…it was not the fancy library that exists now.  Nope.  The elevator to the second floor was old…and scary.  It had seen better days.  But once I made it to the second floor,…

I was scrolling through my photo gallery on my phone the other day looking for a picture.  I ended up scrolling all the way back to February of this year.  And got quite a shock.  I gasped and clutched my pearls.  Fitz, my cat, looked up from his napping perch on the couch to see what was going on.  Y’all…. The picture was taken the week after Uncle Chauncey died.  A nice snow front had settled into Central Arkansas.  No one was going anywhere.  Well, I was not in the right mental space to go anywhere anyway.  An on-time winter wonderland.  You might be imagining that this was a picture…