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

  I am a strong woman. A mother, daughter, sister and a wife. And I’m not alone. I’m surrounded by equally indestructible women. Like them, I’ve felt the sting of the blade and survived. I’ve fallen to my knees, but I’ve always gotten up. Like an old oak tree with deep roots I do not break, I bend. Leaves may fall from my limbs but come spring my branches are full again.    So, if you thought, you’d broken me. Think again. You’re mistaken.   Look around. I’m not shattered. There aren’t tiny broken pieces of my life scattered on the ground. You may have shaken my trunk. Surprised and shocked me like a cold winter ice storm, but you didn’t destroy me. You simply fortified my resolve to live and thrive. See, you’ve underestimated me. My roots are too powerful and far too reaching for that. You simply woke me from a long, deep sleep. Instead of uprooting my life, you rekindled the full power of my strength.  I know who I am. I am kind and giving. Not weak. This is w...

    “No one tells you the hardest part of being a parent is when your kids grow up.” ~Unknown    Most of my adult life I’ve been a mom. In fact, for over 2 decades my whole identity has been and was wrapped up in one word. Mom. I knew no other name, job or calling. I was a mom, through and through. So, what happens when your children leave the nest? Or worse, become estranged.  How do you cope? There’s no map to navigate. And believe me, the host and array of emotions it brings is life altering. When you’re facing the sudden loss of your child, how do you keep your head above water or stop yourself from drowning in the deep end?     Truthfully, I have no idea. I wish I did. If the nest is emptied naturally, it’s bittersweet. If not, it’s devastating. As parents you wait your whole life for your children to spread their wings. You love, nurture and praise them. Build them up. Pray for them. Provide, sacrifice, and yes, you fail them just as many ti...

    “A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretense... and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.” ~ Maya Angelou    Let’s talk about Mayhem, Havoc and Bedlam, shall we? And how about the fourth sister, we call Chaos. Take a look around right now. Our world is totally and completely upside down. Chaotic right? Who knew toilet paper would be a commodity? Or birthday parties would become caravans?  I mean 2019 would’ve had you arrested for wearing a mask inside a bank or grocery store, right? But hey, this is 2020 ya’ll. Don’t worry, now it’s a legit thing. What about canceled vacations or the phrase, “you’re on mute”? Come on, let's be blunt, this new norm isn’t really normal at all. Seriously, who’s gonna forget a record breaking 30 hurricanes in one season or being quarantined? And by all means let's not brush off the Murder Hornets or Zoom bombings. Oh, and just in case you’ve b...

"My prayer is that when I die, all of hell rejoices that I am out of the fight." ~C.S. Lewis    Wanna know the truth? I’m really not all that brave. I’m pretty much stubborn and hardheaded. That's what I am. Basically, like my cooking, I simply make it up as I go. Give me a pan, some garlic, onion, butter, add a little salt, maybe some pepper and throw in a piece or two of chicken and you’ll eat well. But hand me a spear and you just might starve. Reality is I’m no soldier. I’ve never been trained in the art of war. I don’t know strategy or how to command an army. Sure, I can pick up a shield and sword and yes, I can charge the battlefield but let’s be honest, like a stormtrooper, I’m gonna miss every time. At the end of the day, I’d say chaos is more my art than anything else.      Now I certainly didn’t have a say in matters, things probably would have turned out differently if I did. Still, Chaos certainly found me and never quite let g...

"I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells." ~ Dr. Seuss I have always been a curious soul. As a little girl I was inherently curious, inquisitive and filled with an imagination that took me on adventures like none you have ever seen. I loved to play dress up, the wilder, the more peculiar and unusual the better. I loved to sing out loud, at the top of my lungs even if I was off tune. I told bed time stories to my parents. I'd take them on my many wild, crazy and unexpected adventures right before night time prayers, ready to sail off into my dreams. I guess you could say I'm weird, odd, off beat, and very unconventional. But I like it that way. Walt Disney once said, "We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." I think this is why I fell in love with his world and why his world became part of mine as a little girl. I guess when it comes down to it, I wa...

"If you're going through hell KEEP GOING." ~ Winston Churchill If there is one thing I know well it's life is tough. Seems more than anything Struggle and I are old friends. We have this vibe thing going. Or rather Struggle seems to have a radar gun pointed in my direction at any given moment. As least that's how it feels anyway.  Struggle, has this "Oh it's going so well for you is it now?" thing going with me then turning around and chiming in, "Why don't I just stir this pot over here for you then?" Struggle just wants to be helpful I'm sure BUT helpful is not the word coming to mind. It's more like hassle and trouble with a capital T if I do say so myself. The bottom line is I'm a magnet for anything remotely related to the words difficulty, struggle and exhausting. If I have learned anything in my 43 years, it's this,"Strength does not come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things ...

Part 3 Finishing up our chat on emotions there's no doubt life is difficult. Let's be honest. Maybe your day or even your year has been anything but serine or relaxed.  Maybe you want to shout and scream and throw yourself on the ground. But let me encourage you; Joy can still keep you balanced. Even Fear from Inside Out blurts out after a bad day, “"All right! We did not die today, I call that an unqualified success!" We’ve all been there right?  In fact I can say with confidence our family has been all over the emotional chart. I think this is why Inside Out became a quick favorite, as it struck an emotional cord. Listening into Riley’s emotions I can almost hear what must go on inside my kiddo’s heads at times. “Joy: Oh c'mon, it could be worse... Joy: Oh c'mon, it could be worse... Disgust: Yeah, Joy. We could be lying on the dirty floor. In a bag. Joy: Okay, I admit it, we had a rough start. But think of all the good things that... ...

How do you define yourself? Is it how others see you, successful, beautiful or educated? Maybe it’s how you see yourself, overweight, struggling to pay the bills or always trying to keep up with the Jones’ next door?  It saddens me how many of us fall into this trap, defining who we think we are without really knowing who we are.  This year, 2015, is about being myself, knowing myself and being happy with who I am, not what I am.   Most, if not all of 2014 was spent finding myself, who I really was, not who I or for that matter anyone else thought I should be. Discovery can be exciting and challenging as it can be painful. For me, the exploration was worth the loss. I’m done with walking on eggshells or cow toeing to a definition of an idea of myself which has no merit! Personally, I am a wife, a mother, a lover, a daughter, an only child, a niece, a cousin, an aunt, a daughter and sister in law, a friend, a breast cancer survivor, a writer, a Christian, and a m...

Sometimes life just starts falling apart and no matter how hard you try to super glue or chase your life around with a hot glue gun, your life is still going to end up shattered on the floor. Plain and simple our lives are going to crack one way or another. Without a shadow of a doubt,  each of us are going to face the darkness and end up falling to pieces despite our best attempts at keeping it together! I like to think of these moments like eggs, cracked, broken and scrambled inside the frying pan. No matter how hard I try, or how much time I spend trying to appear I have it all together, the truth is I am very human and because of this one word I am imperfect. I spend many days racing around like a crazy woman. Goodness knows I may even have one of those famous Lisa Lampanelli break down moments as she often does on the Celebrity Apprentice. Without even realizing how we look or how insane we may be acting we all have those breakdown mo...

Have you ever seen the State farm ad, State of Chaos? Poor, poor, Dwayne, while most of his neighborhood is fleeing from an out of control robot monster taking over the street, a couple well meaning, but seriously over chatty neighbors are commentating on the destruction of Dwayne’s life as everything he owns is torn apart.   We have all lived through times like this and quite honestly felt as if we served as the commentary for those who have nothing better to do than chat about how our lives are falling apart. Life is harsh and can be unpredictable. No mater how hard we try, plan or even push ourselves, everything we thought was meant to be in our lives can crumble, leaving us with the pieces. Have you ever felt as if life was coming at you from every side? Seriously, you know those kinds of days, maybe even weeks, when everything that CAN, WILL come against you? Lights go out because you forgot to pay the bill, you swallowed a swig of sour milk with your stale donut, stubbe...