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

“Cause you never think that the last time is the last time. You think there will be more. You think you have forever. But you don’t.” ~ Unknown They say, “go where you feel most alive.” I say find your happy place, wherever that may be and go there often. And when you find it be content, untroubled, light-hearted and cheerful. Be all there in every moment...fully and completely. Don’t overthink or over plan. Just be part of the moment and make it yours. Why? Well truthfully we never know when a moment will be our last...when we’ll see a person or a place for the very last and final time. We live and we die. Nothing beyond is guaranteed. Everything in between is a gift. No one really knows when our time will be up, but we do know it will be... someday. And this is why it’s extremely important we find time for the people and places we love. Being in our happy place and better yet sharing it with our family and friends has the ability to truly fill us with joy and happiness. So

“That’s the story of you and me, the way we’ve always been and we’ll always be friends until the end. “ ~ Piglet I was very little when my mama first introduced me to Pooh Bear. She read all the many adventures of Winnie the Pooh to me as a child somewhere between 1977 and 78. I in turn read them to my own boys some 25 years later. In fact I felt such a strong attachment to Pooh Bear both the boys nurseries softly resembled the 100 Acre Wood. I’m sure my love and fondness for Winnie the Pooh came from my childhood memories. I remember listening to my mama’s sweet voice bringing the world of Christopher Robin to life every night that year. She began reading ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A.A. Milne to me soon after we’d seen Disney’s animated feature-length film, ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’ in the spring of 1977 on Post. This silly, Buddy Bear with his  'chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff' as the Chieftains brilliantly describe and his entourage taugh

"You will never look more beautiful than when you stumble from the destruction, and smile at surviving the chaos.” ~ Madalyn Beck Have you ever seen a lantern glowing brightly in the darkness of the night? Ever thought to yourself how exquisite this firelight inside was against the backdrop of nightfall? I’m often taken off guard, left breathless in fact every time I catch a glimpse of the Tangled lanterns inside Disney’s Fantasyland. Besides simply being stunningly beautiful, they’re gracefully illuminating, enlightening and inspiring. I’m reminded each time I pass by of God's grace and goodness surrounding my own life. In many ways I’m taken back to the very moment breast cancer's shadow swept across my chest. As I watch each lantern twinkle, coming to life as the darkness of night breaks out across the sky I hear these words whispered in my ear…”Let the lights guide you home Christie.” I tell you this with a heart full of awe and gratefulness, on those part

"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

"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

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish, I wish tonight. We'll make a wish, and do as dreamers do, and all our wishes (all our wishes), will come true."  ~ Wishes Like you, our new year began with ushering out the old one. We gathered with friends and family at our home celebrating the New Year. It's become a tradition of sorts, gathering together laughing, playing games, sharing stories and watching the fireworks. My best friends and I have known each other for over 20 years and our kids have grown up together. Our children, now grown have celebrated milestones together and graduated together. Looking back it's hard to believe for two decades our families have seen one another through 20 years of adventures. And again we have said goodbye to yet another year and hello to 2017 together.  So now after a 12 month long journey 2016 has come to a close. But with the new year's arrival 365 new opportu

“In this house we don’t give up.” It’s our motto, our hakuna matata you could say. Being a young mother diagnosed with TNBC in 2006 was shocking to say the least. But it was downright absolutely frightening for my children. They were babies really. Joshua was 9, in third grade and Micah was in first grade just turning 7 the week I started chemo. You can say this wasn't exactly  how I saw our story playing out myself. That in mind I can just imagine mommy having cancer wasn’t anything like Goodnight Moon for the boys either. Breast cancer, isn't a fairy tale of heroics and martyrs. It’s a battle to the death, for life. Either cancer is going down, or you are. It’s just that horrifically simply. When I look back on my life, on my kids and their battle with my disease I’m amazed by their bigger than life brave hearts. They are what we call co-survivors. Why, well because they too were fighting the beast right alongside me. Literally, “my kids were my heroes through it all.”

Life is a funny thing. Nothing is guaranteed and nothing is completely safe. We can try and predict all we want but we cannot fully anticipate life’s twists and turns. Life is beautiful this way. Everything can fall apart only to be revealed as stained glass once broken and restored. Memories they too can be tricky. Just like our emotions they can become fuzzy, blurred, vague, unclear and distorted. I’ve heard it said before a picture says a thousand words. Memories are in many ways like a photograph. When we invision a moment in our thoughts sometimes those memories aren’t as beautiful or as horrible as we imagine. It’s when we actually look at a memory captured on film we can see the truth revealed. Our faces and our eyes they don’t lie. Happiness, love and joy or even hurt, sadness and anger speak for us. In those photographs our unsaid words are captured.  I know for my family, we’ve had many more happy memories than sad. The problem is sometimes those sad, hurtful memorie