Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

"See the line, where the sky meets the sea? It calls me and no one knows how far it goes." ~Moana I was born exactly 44 years ago today. I was born the daughter of a southern gentleman, an All American, death from above, 82nd Airborne soldier and a shy, quiet, creative soul, musicaly inclined and exceptionally beautiful vision I call my mom. I was born in the middle of the night placed in the waiting arms of my parents and given my name, Christina Marie. It's meaning was personal. It's interpretation meaning follower of Christ, a child wished for. Indeed I was born an only child, but I bloomed and my roots grew strong because of this. My parents, a couple of dreamers, a pair of survivors and a family of two for years became a family of three with my birth. The life I have inherited from my mom and dad is one of unconditional love, faith and genuine happiness. Some may look at my life, reaching back to my humble beginnings and see a sheltered and protected li

"Welcome to our comfortable, happy, sometimes loud, usually messy, full of love home." ~ Unknown Love absolutely lives here, within our home, within our hearts and in our memories. If these walls could talk they would surely tell you stories of courage, bravery, sadness, overflowing joy, goofiness and laughter, lots and lots of laughter. We have filled these hallways, rooms and walls with so much love I can feel every moment, see every memory almost as if I could reach out and touch each one of them. Since we first moved in 12 years ago, on June 30, 2005, my birthday to be exact we've built a life together. Within these walls we've watched our boys grow, celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, promotions. We've seen our boys prepare for homecomings, prom and graduation, sent them off to college, watched them walk out the door and come home again after the first day of a new job, gathered for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and sat down to family meals almost every

"It's not until you lose everything that you can truly appreciate everything." ~ Belle, Beauty and the Beast I am a loved woman. I am married to the love of my life. He is strong, handsome, a bit ornery at times but always kind. He's far from perfect, but then neither am I. He can have a temper, but be assured so do I. He is fair, gentle, sweet and yes sometimes a bit unrefined. He calls me his Beauty, and at other times, his Baby Beast. I call him my Beast, the love of my life and my hunny-bee.  We are quite the oddly mismatched pair to many, but that's what makes us work. I've always been what you'd call a bit peculiar, just like the song..."Look there she goes that girl is strange, no question. Dazed and distracted, can't you tell? Never part of any crowd. 'Cause her head's up on some cloud. No denying she's a funny girl that Belle" But Johnny knew this about me from the moment we first met and he loved me for it. I w

"I'm much more me when I'm with you." ~ Unknown I love the summertime. I mean what's not to love about the lazy days of summer? You know what I'm talking about, especially if you're in the education field. The stay up late nights followed by those non alarm sounding wake ups, messy hair, no make-up, PJ wearin', barefoot I'm burning daylight, I don't care filled with a hot cup of tea, a good book, your play list turned up best morning ever kind of days. And the best part well that's the ability to spend the afternoons with your closest friends. When I say I'm truly blessed I am. Over the last few years God has strengthened and fortified several wonderful and remarkable friendships in my life. These women many of you know I call my sisters of the heart. Truth be told, I have no doubt, we'll be the old ladies causing trouble, racing our wheelchairs and dueling with our canes one day.That's just who we are, goofy, silly a

"Allow beauty to shatter you regularly. The loveliest people are the ones who have been burnt and broken and torn at the seams, yet still send out their open hearts into the world to mend with love again, and again, and again. You must allow yourself to feel your life while you're in it." ~ Victoria Erickson Our family just spent eight wonderful days inside the World known as Disney. I know what could we possibly do for eight days and why? Well, for us it's a feeling I can only describe as coming home. We're just Disney people. We were there for many different reasons but the biggest was to celebrate our youngest finishing high school. It's hard for me to believe Micah is 18, done with high school and heading out into the great big world in pursuit of his very own hopes and dreams. I mean I just closed my eyes for a moment, and suddenly both my little boys were men standing in front of me. It's bittersweet is what it is. With all the excitement l

"No one in this world can love a girl more than her daddy." ~ Unknown From the moment I was born I was daddy's little girl. In fact my dad was the first father ever allowed inside a birthing room at the hospital I was born at way back in 1973. It was groundbreaking back then. My dad held me even before my mama did. He was the first safe place I ever knew. Right from the start he cradled me inside his arms and in his heart. The fact that I was a girl, and and his only child only seemed to strengthen our bond through the years. My dad, through everything, he's always been there for me. My dad is a man of God, who's shown me His grace, mercy and unconditional love every day of my life. Psalm 103:13 says, "The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him." My dad, never gave me reason to fear him, he's kind, gentle and loving, and yet he is a man to be respected, a soldier, 82 nd airborne strong and gre

"Because when I look at you , I can feel it. And  - and I look at you and I...I'm home. Please...I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget. " Dory, Finding Nemo I can hardly believe it's been 14 years since we first watched Finding Nemo with our boys. The year was 2003. Joshua was 6 and Micah just 4 years old. Little did we know that just three short years later breast cancer would come for me, wrangling for our family and the life we were creating together. How could we know then that every memory we were making was about to be put to the test, tearing at our fabric, and pulling at the very stitches holding us together? How could we know a barracuda named breast cancer would come seeking to destroy our home, our life together in 2006, possibly leaving our boys without a mother? I wanted nothing more than to see my boys grow up. I mean what an awfully big adventure that was going to be right? I longed to see where life would take our boys e

"With you, I am home." ~Unknown When I lay my head down every night, he's next to me. When I wake up every morning, he's still right there beside me. When I roll over, he's never too far. He's always just within arms reach, his hands pulling me closer in toward him. Even when we disagree, he's still there, never far from my side. We may agree to disagree but we never go to sleep mad. Life's way too short for that kind of funny business. It's never just my way or just his way. We're a team and we make decisions together, with each other, for each other. He's the love of my life, my husband, my strong, steady and loving refuge. I call him my Beast and yes while he calls me his Beauty, his goof and his love,  he will certainly tell you I'm the only woman who can drive him crazy. The one woman who brings him to his knees and still makes him happy to have all the above in one breath. When I think of Johnny, of our home, our bed a

"I am learning everyday to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be, to inspire me and not terrify me." ` Mind Set on Greatness Have you seen the car ad where the guy's life GPS just keeps recalculating? Personally this ad, strikes a cord with me. Maybe it's because my life continually feels like it's constantly changing, adjusting, modifying itself and ultimately recalculating my path. This ad gets it right. Sometimes life takes a sudden, and very dramatically different turn from what we originally had planned. Truthfully my personal internal GPS has driven me all over the map through the years. I set off in life with a plan of my own but not everything lines up as perfectly as we want it to. "Life is funny isn't it? Just  when you think you've got it all figured out , just when you finally begin to plan something, get excited about it and feel like you know the direction you're heading in, the paths change, the signs c

"I didn't always know what I wanted to do but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be." ~ Diane Von Furstenberg Ever heard the saying we all have a little Wonder Woman inside us? I have, and my daddy was the one who repeatedly affirmed this to me every day of my life growing up. My dad was a believer in who I was then and the woman I would become later. He taught me long before it was cool to rise up and be a woman of character and strength. The saying, " She needed a hero so that's what she became" was ingrained into my fabric long before it made the social media rounds. My dad has always been my greatest fan, and while I loved my Barbie dolls right long side my comic books my dad made sure I understood being a strong woman was far more important than ever looking like a Barbie doll. And truthfully my Barbie's stepped in as Superhero substitutions more often than not. I was and will forever be a Wonder Woman kind of girl. I know I'm not W

"I can't. You can't rewrite the past." ~ Jay Asher How many times do things go wrong in life? Our plans get caught up in mayhem or simply fall off course and  into a stinkin', rotten, nasty, unpleasant, gigantic pot hole in the middle of the road. Sadly a lot of the time we can't avoid the road hazards. They just come with the territory. Goodness gracious I know I've found myself more than once taking the detour. Life just has this way of altering , faltering and revising any and all of our perfectly laid out plans. For whatever reason, life seems to have a mind of it's own right? The same can be said of our past. Our lives are all different, each one of us has a distinct, separate story to tell and like those unaccounted for detours, we tend to stay stuck in the same chapter, and often on the same page over and over again. We get caught in a warped time loop, becoming prisoners of our own poor, sad, story-telling. The reality is while you