When in Rome

Sorry I have been on such a blogging hiatus lately. But I’m back! And to be really honest, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to write about yet….. {fingers tapping, brain offering up options, doooo deee doooo, more finger-tapping}…. This is so much easier when you write every day. Then you’re not thinking over the last month of happenstances and trying to figure out what’s “most interesting” to write about.

Ooooooh yeahhh!!! I’m going to Rome at the end of the month!! My brother, mom and I are heading over to the ancient city to view all of the historic landmarks, eat yummy Italian pizza and use all the cliches we can think of about Rome, i.e. “When in Rome,” “All Roads Lead to Rome,” “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day,” etc.

I have never been to Italy so I am super excited about this trip! And – to see the silver lining in everything – the Dawgs have been struggling a little {cough, cough, A LOT!} this season, making it much easier to miss the long-awaited UGA vs. FLA game!

Obviously we’re going to check out the Trevi Fountain, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps, the Coliseum… but is there anything else we definitely need to see??

So pumped!!!

For the Next 50 Years

Tonight, my husband looked over at me as we were doing our routine nightly reading and said:

I love that for the next 50 years, unless something tragic happens, you’ll always be right here.

Do you know how thankful I am for that? If I could tell you all of the millions of things like that he says every day, it would probably bring tears to your eyes. I am beyond blessed to have the most caring, selfless man as my husband. I truly don’t deserve someone who loves this well and fully.

Apart from my salvation, he is the thing I am ultimately most thankful for.

If You Know Me…

…then you know that I have one main goal in life: to be a grandmother. Well this story doesn’t exactly pertain to that goal. But it’s related. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to remind you that I want to be a grandmother.

So I’m in the airport yesterday morning, coming back from a pretty awful weekend (minus a few highlights), and I sit down in my chair. More like I fall into my chair and let it support every muscle in my body after the 15 hour day I worked out in the scorching heat the day before with a five hour total sleep. (Gosh, I love venting on here every now and then!)

Well across from me sit this couple. The man has a sweet, quiet look in his eye, similar to my grandfather. And the woman has painted-on eyebrows. Hehe. A perfect couple.

As they sit there, I just observe how in love they are with one another. They talk intermittently. Each time, it’s with a kind tone. As they continue to sit there, I can just see his love for her in the way he looks at her. She’s reading a pirate book. The author has chosen to plaster his picture on the entire back cover – I hope that the face he’s making is done in jest; otherwise, the guy is a tool. I digress.

The whole time I’m looking at them, I wonder how many years they’ve been married. Probably, they got married when she was 18 and he was 21. They had children the following year and learned that she had a lot of maturing to do. He went out drinking late on nights they got in fights and she told too much to her mom, resulting in several years of awkwardness between he and his in-laws. They barely spoke to each other for about three years when their kids were in high school. Then, slowly but surely, he began to tell her he loved her again. After a couple of years, they started going on regular dates again when the kids moved out.

Now, it’s been 46 years of marriage and they’ve never been more in love. It’s not a hot, spicy, passionate love. It’s a more special type of love. One that knows no better friend, that feels no doubt, that remembers years of steady, faithful relationship. There’s a contentment of knowing everything about each other and loving the other more every single moment.

Again, people watching is probably an unhealthy activity for me. But I can’t help but think what their story is. And I can’t wait until Joel and I are at that point. Taking care of a couple of grandkids when our children go out of town. And looking at each other with that look of utter satisfaction at a life well-lived and well-loved.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Today has been a lot stressful. Most of this stress is worry I have placed on myself because I’m an “overanalyzer” by nature. But a few things were actually legitimately stressful. You’d be stressed. I called someone I work with and they were stressed enough to call someone else to figure things out for them – something they never do. The person they called was so stressed they didn’t even call us back. (Are you stressed reading this paragraph because it makes no sense and it’s starting to overwhelm you? Good. I’m not proofreading that part because I want you to feel the depth of despair I felt at said stress.)

Thankfully, a bright sunbeam tore through the gloom of the day and brought a MUCH-NEEDED breath of fresh air. My sweet cousin Lindsay. She is seriously one of the most beautiful and talented girls you will ever meet. She’s never in your face about it, but she will quietly beat you at every sport you play her at (and board games, too). Lindsay’s 18 0r 19 – how sad I can’t remember?! – and we’ve never gotten to spend much time with just the two of us. So, when I was in Durham for work, I knew I had to get on her calendar.

She came to dinner with me tonight and talked about loving college life and all of the blessings God has been pouring on her this year. It was seriously the perfect medicine to a stressful day. Just to see the sheer joy and thankfulness she has was contagious. …I didn’t even think about my stressful situation again for about 30 minutes after we had dinner. That’s a big deal for me.

So please smile and share your joy with someone this week. You can actually change a person’s day for the better just by offering joy to those you interact with. Misery loves company, and when there’s no company to be found, it eventually disappears and gets replaced by a little happiness instead.

My Life in Pictures (Since My Computer Got Stolen in December and All My Pictures Were Taken Along With It)

Haha, sorry that was an obnoxious title… but I realized I couldn’t honestly say it was my life in pictures. There are several pictures from my childhood that I need to convert into digital files that will not be on here, as well as several that got lost forever when my computer was stolen. Children, let this be a lesson to all of us to PURCHASE AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!!

Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to post some of the pictures I’m most thankful for that I still have. Some will be of friends or family, some will just be favorite pictures that I think look cool. Either way, I’m thankful for them and want to share!

OIB

The title of this blog is to be pictured in your head like this:

Virtually every year since my dad was eight, his extended family has spent a week of the summer on the Carolina coast. This began with his grandma, his family and his aunt’s and uncle’s families… but it eventually grew into a 50+ person endeavor.

When I was younger, I literally lived each day in either anticipation for Christmas or for the beach. Each of us had a cousin of similar age to hang out with so we were never bored and it was the one week of the year we could stay up as late as we wanted, eat as much junk food as we wanted and not have to do any chores.

In recent years, we have had to split the family into two trips: one for my Aunt Judy’s family and one for my Nana’s family. While I definitely miss the pandemonium of 16 kids running around screaming, my dad’s cousins pranking each other to no end and my Papa yelling “Shut the door!!!” 25 times a day… not having to elbow my way to the buffet line and having a bed to sleep on (as opposed to the leaking blow-up mattress) has been a refreshing change.

Anyway, this week is beach week. Joel and I made the trek out there last weekend for the first two days, determined not to let “The Man” keep us from as much ocean time as possible. But we headed back last night to pay our dues and go to work Monday and Tuesday. Meanwhile, my whole family and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles are in Ocean Isle right now, enjoying the gorgeous view of the moon on the ocean from the back porch rocking chairs.  Thankfully though, we will get to head back Wednesday night and stay through Sunday! I am so excited!

Check out these pictures from past beach adventures: