"Drink Coffee- Do stupid things even faster"

What a Holiday! I'm glad to say it is O.V.E.R. yet still basking in the glory of friends and family. It might have been one of the nicest Christmas's I have had in several years. I spent Christmas night alone though- it's always different when you have absolutly nobody to share the actual Holiday with. It is rather sobering in a way. In any case Xmas Eve was wonderful and the following Saturday as well.

It snowed here, i believe it was our first white Christmas in years, typically all WE get is ice. It was a nice change and much welcomed. The silence of the snow still nearly takes my breath away. The smell is alluring in itself though, enough to make me stop in my tracks and breath as deep as i can. I was outside on my deck today, snow still stuck to the ground, just not roads, not that we got much anyways. The sun was in full bloom today and it felt so good. I had to lean against the post, face to the beautiful sun as always and breath in the cold air as deep as i could. Euphoric is really all i can say.

It has definatly been an emotional month, or i should say, few months. Every day i wake up finding just a little more about myself, happy with who i am yet missing something I can't seem to find, not even really sure what it is or if it exists for real it's like searching for the back of your earing, you might as well say fuck it and go buy a new one. So that leaves a gap- I have no money or no clue what to buy... new shoes... that's more like it. Great idea!

So the Cowboys get to go to play offs if they beat the Eagles next week. OF course you know who i'm rooting for, but i wont cry if it's the EAgles that go this year either i Just think my boys deserve the chance more so than a team that picked up a douche bag like Vick. (my opinion, if you beat dogs, you should get beat... simple.. not handed your paycheck back to pay all your millions of dollars in fines) so that is my only beaf with my secondary NFL team. So, in all ... go COWBOYS!


Have you ever watched the flame dance on a candle? sometimes, it stands totally still, not moving in the slightest. You can see the definition. The darker outside of the flame, the bright inner light and the dark wick at the center. Suddenly as if it caught your breath from accross the room, it flicks to the right, then the left and appears to dance for you. It waves softly in each direction, flickers quickly then stands strangly still again. If i had to put my life into an analogy right now, because those closest to me know i'm pretty good with those. THAT would be my life. That beautiful candle just accross the room from me, the blue one. It smells like the Ocean (ok, so not really b/c i dont smell salt water or fish) but it is calming, peaceful and warm. from the outside. Like my life. Of course i'm not sure my life LOOKS very calming at all to many people.. but it is. I think i spend more time focusing on moments in life than most anyone i know, vs the big picture. I'm not sure if losing things over and over again (people, places, things, memories, bullshit in general) makes it more obvious that you should stop and breath in the moment or maybe i should give some credit to the Buddhist religion. in any case, i belive both are responsible.

I see things different these days. the candle isn't just a source of light and warmth, it's deeper. it has that hot solid edge, the one people SEE and dont think about. the external shell of the fires of life if you will. once you get past the blinding 'what appears to be a solid line' of definition around the light, you see the LIGHT it's self. it gets brighter some times, then duller and more orange, then back to vibrant yellow and so on. That's more of me as a woman, just human. soaking in emotion from all directions. Loving so much and so many, cry so hard and missing or losing things (from lives to earing backs)laughing so much i could cry happy tears to crying so hard i have to laugh. the part that matters is the wick though. the part nobody else really sees unless they can look through the flame into the middle- the eye of it- the wick. My soul. It appears dark to the eye, the wick of a candle. because in theory it is, it's just a wick right, you light that ugly dark thing and out of it comes light and warmth. love so to speak. Have you ever just wanted to blow your damn candle out for like a week? LOL I dont mean indefinatly just hit pause. Stop. Hault. Nobody move. I'm gonna lay down and sleep and when i wake up my flame will be brighter, my spirit charged, my wick even stronger and this time i'll be dancing and will never stop! HA I want a vacation.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, HOliday, whatever it was, or wasn't to you. In any case, i hope you spent a few days, weeks or even just hours with friends/family you love and who love you. I hope you were lifted up and your candle flame danced. I hope your smiles came free and the laughter was so intense your cheek bones feel as if they are frozen and cramping. THAT is the best kind of laughter. I hope you were out with your old friends, learning of places they've been, storys they told or faces they've met. Home with your family passing gifts and egg nog along with the newest baby of the family. AT the dinner table with whomever you needed at that moment passing the Lasagna around like it is tradition for xmas dinner :)

We always get what we need, no doubt about that. We dont always get what we want, that's for damn sure. But when exactly do we work hard enough to deserve them both at the same time? I'm ready for my good Karma, any day now Universe... God? Anyone? lay it on me!

Peace to you all, Much love from my little piece of heaven on earth here in the middle of nowhere AR.

Memoirs- Jeanette Eisele Part 1.

It was July 16th of 2003. It had been a full year at least of non stop phone calls to her, daily… typically more than once sometimes more than five depending on the change between them. It was normal to call her in the morning, see how she felt and get my ass chewed out from something I’d done when I was five, like biting the blinds leaving teeth prints while I watched my parents out in the yard, of course she was back in that moment, so you can imagine how hard it was for me to not laugh at her being that I was at the time 22 and she was STILL yelling at me for doing that, then saying ‘I didn’t’ do it’ (I was an only child people… lets say I wasn’t bright enough to blame the dog) I remember waking up this day, calling her. The first of the calls were pleasant, she talked of the humming birds fighting over feeders or mates or whatever would cause then to fly at one another shit and fly the other direction. We would giggle about this almost daily. The first conversation was good, I thought this would be a wonderful day for us. An hour later I got another call from her angry with me, because she’d not heard from me yet today, ranting about insurance claims and the tornado then switching to something totally off the wall. My stomach would sink and I could hear it in her voice that there wasn’t much time left, but I didn’t care to face it. I was 22. Nothing can hurt you at 22. The calls went on all day- good then bad, then finally the last one it hit her you could tell, she realized after I angrily said to her ‘mom, for gods sake I’m working and I’ll come see you after work, we’ve had this same FUCKING conversation all damn day’…. she hung up on me. I sat, staring at the clock in my office. It was after 4 and I got off work by five. I immediately felt horrible and tried to call back but no answer.

She had gotten an MRI a few months prior to her losing her memory sparatically, they saw dark spots on the base of her skull – meaning the cancer had spread. The slightest hint of chemo therapy or radiation or even the acknowledgement that she was dying or losing her mind was out of the question for her. So we went along with it, papa and i. we just pretended right along side her that nothing was wrong.

When I got off work, I went to my house that I had been living in with Jaida’s dad (this was before Jaida of course, we lived in sin… ya ya) I was preparing dinner, of course to take some to my parents when I heard a knock at the door. It was her, holding wind chimes in each hand. I welcomed her in, gave her a hug. She was in a surprisingly chipper mood. She had been at Modern Variety and found these chimes. She wanted me to pick the one I most liked. It was hard, one were rainbow colored sunshines with huge smiles and the other soft pink butterflies. I wanted them both, but I took the sunshines, knowing that she secretly wanted the butterflies, since I always reminded her of one. We sat and chatted for a while, she showed me some sillies she had gotten and shared some white chocolate with me (the real kind, the kind they chip away and put in a paper bag for you… the kind that makes you sick when you eat more than a few pieces). Like always though, the conversation slipped… somewhere in the midst we began arguing about something and I told her in the meanest voice I could muster “I have had enough! FUCK MOM- you go off like this ten seconds later you’re back to fucking normal!!! Seriously how do you NOT see what you are doing?” She stopped, her face turned blank and she headed towards the door. She smiled at me as she began walking out, still holding the butterfly wind chimes and said ‘you wont have to worry that much longer bambi, I love you’ to which I replied ‘I love you too mom’ and the door shut quietly.

I watched her get in the van, sit for a moment realizing what was realling going on, it had to be hard to realize you were losing your mind and had no clue. I stood in the picture like any snotty 22 year old ass hole would do and just watched her without telling her I was sorry. My god, she was tiny, she weighed 80 pounds last I knew, she was a walking skeleton.

The night drew to a close like any other, Adam and I watching tv. Ignoring all possible reality in the outside world, eating whatever it was I had cooked, snuggling with Paxton and just hanging out.

July 17, 2003

I woke up the next morning with the same chip on my shoulder. I remember thinking to myself how horrible I was, but at the same time how I wasn’t going to let her ruin my day today. I wasn’t going to call! I headed off to work – regular office chatter- blah blah blah and it was lunch time. I went home to have lunch with Adam and our Friend Chase. At the time the two were mowing yards together so it was a nice break for me to smell stinky working men while eating a lunch meat sandwhich. I remember heading back to work around 1:00 and that is when the day grew cold.

I still hadn’t called, I kept thinking of what I had told a co worker just weeks before this whole thing ‘I wished god would heal her or take her away because I cannot handle this much longer’- sinking in my head and my stomach I felt the guilt and realized it was nearly 2 and I’d not even gotten a call from her yet. About that time my phone rings.

“Bambi, this is XXX from security, we need you to come over to the security building right away please”. Immediately I thought I was getting fired, again with the selfishness of a 22 year old until I rounded the corner to the building and saw the Pierce City Police car. I heard every step I took, every breath in and out, I could feel the sun beating down on me almost in a straight burn. It was bright, in my eyes and I could feel my heart racing I had a hunch, intuition you might call it, but it was confirmed when I peered through the window to see my dads hat he wore every day- I knew it was him b/c he always wore his infantry pin on it from the army.

I opened the door to see two of our company security officers that I’d gotten to know very well by speeding past them in the parking lot while they shake their fingers at me and I’d honk every time as if to say nah nah nah – against the far wall was the cross eyed cop from Pierce City who was once our janitor turned police chief over night (yeah, I’m serious here, go a head and laugh… we all do!) and then he stood up……….. my dad…. His tall thin stature normally so strong and protective was green in the face – red in the eyes and shaking like he’d seen a ghost.

“She did it Bambi” he said to me with an obvious pain and lump in his throat. “NO…. where is she, is she ok… no she didn’t!!!!” he repeated that yes in fact she had- and I hit the cold tile of the floor knees first. He picked me up, I hit him in the chest as if it were somehow going to make me feel better or wake me up from the horrible nightmare I was in and behind him, as he held me so tight to his chest I saw the PC officer look to the ground when the words “Where is she now, can we go see her” came from my mouth. The room cleared quickly. The security guards that once jokes with me turned and walked away, the officer stood steady with no expression and no eye contact.

“Shes gone sweety, she’s at Lakin Funeral Home”

The last words I remember then were saying NO and crying, feeling sick and running out the front door of the building that seems to be closing in on me and throwing up violently next to the tire of my dads car. I sat down in the summer heat suddenly emotionless, no tears, they had stopped…….my ribs hurt from the emotional thrust of sickness that had just came from inside my soul.

It wasn’t long before papa joined me and sat on the curb. Everyone cleared out it seemed and it was just us. I knew what I had to do. But I wasn’t ready. Two weeks ago she reminded me very clearly “When it’s my time, I don’t want a big funeral so all the fake people can come stare at my lifeless shell and pretend they cared, I want you to cremate me, don’t you dare let them cut me open I want to see God in one piece unscathed from a coroners hand, and I want you to scatter me to the four corners” This obviously was a conversation we all knew was coming, she had to smoke pot to eat- even a few bites then sometimes it would hurt so bad she threw it back up anyways.

My dad put his hand on my shoulder and told me to go get my things, that I had a job to do as I was in charge of everything in her passing. Nobody but Me was to make any final decisions in her well being for the afterlife. I stumbled across the black pavement into the building where I worked. My boss was gone, I was weak and I will never forget the first person I told. Her name was Brandy Beshears- I saw her in the kitchen and she asked me what was wrong. Make up down my face, I asked where Kurt (my boss) was. In the next second would be the first time, to what was at that time almost a total stranger that “I have to leave, my mom killed herself”.

I excused myself from the already growing curious crowd of people who had apparently seen me fall outside the building and get sick, so you can imagine how quickly news spread the moment the large oak doors closed behind me. All I could hear in my head was what I had said only a few days or weeks before “I wish god would just heal her or take her…. “ over and over again. The next stop was to tell Adam. I knew where they were working, and papa drove me silently to the doctors yard. I stepped out of the car and as if he felt the pain rush over him as well he heard my tears over the hum of the lawn mower. He shut it off, jaw dropped in awe and I again lost all strength in my knees. I don’t remember what I told him- I just remember opening my eyes and I was at the funeral home.

The smell is horrible in any funeral home, it’s deathly quiet and the carpet is always some horrible pink color with the most hideous flower wall paper to hide the once panneld walls. Mr. Lakin asked me to sit at one end of the table, I chose the other in defiance. Papa at my side, holding my hand Mr. Lakin began. All of the paper work had to be filled out by me. Autopsy? NO – I mean after all my moms’ friend Sharon Black- also a PC cop was at the back door of the house when she did it… what was the point, we all knew the truth behind the suicide…. At least the ones she allowed to know. I looked past his huge shoulders into the crack between the swinging doors and I could see her. His words became a dull sound that I could no longer make out as I focused on the space between the doors. I could see her beautiful long blonde hair and the tip of her nose…. I could see the red spot on her forehead that she had gotten in a motorcycle accident from when she was 16. After I filled out all the information, signed for no funeral, wrote a check for the amount of the cremation and made plans to come back to pick her up I was handed an envelope. Her blongings, what she was wearing when she was picked up. Amnithest necklace, tarnished from wear – a tiny emerald earing she wore on just one side in the only second hole she was brave enough to pierce and a tube of her favorite chapstick… Chap-Et- the blue kind that smells like medicine.

After a bear hug and a slight tear, Mr. Lakin went to escort us out. “no, I want to say goodbye to her sir” to which he replied very stern “Honey, I don’t think you want this to be the last memory you have of your mom”…. But it was……….. because I’d buried so many friends already through high school, car wrecks, suicides, illnesses that I was not leaving until I said goodbye to my mother, my best friend.

I didn’t wait for his answer, I simply pushed past him into the morgue, and there she was. Lifeless in a black body bag unzipped down just above her chest. Her golden hair even more light against the dark plastic bag and her snow white skin so milky and for once healthy looking. The blood hadn’t been flowing through her veins for hours but she was still beautiful. Her eyes were open, eyes like no other. Blue as the most beautiful sky with a glorious and powerful soul to match hiding just behind them. she had a smile on her face- a faint smile, it made me smile. She was no longer in pain………..she didn’t even bleed- not one drop. Sharon and I think she was dead before the bullet entered her chest. I brushed my fingers through her hair one last time, closed each eye with my own finger to be sure she couldn’t see the pain in my face just incase part of her was still there, lingering to make sure I did my job right. I leaned forward, a tear from my face falling to hers and kissed her lifeless cheek. It wasn’t totally hard yet, just cool to the touch… lifeless and solid.

To be continued…………

Dark Days of Summer: Part 2

After speaking to my dad yesterday i realized............ it's been six years since she died. Apparently i've been stuck in this cave longer than I thought because somehow, I lost an entire year. I CAN do math, i promise, maybe it's because i dont remember the entire first year after the loss. In any case, imagine my surprise and the pain when I ran into that brick wall yesterday.

Continued............
After hearing her read her note, over and over again in my head the cold earth beneth me began to grow colder and wetter. Her voice was finally gone and all i could hear were the drops again, the tear drops falling to the wet ground beneith me. I felt something suddenly in the palm of my hand, it was small and hard, mis shapen and cold, just like everything else around me. I tried with all my mite to see this thing, but couldn't make out what it was or how it got into my hand. It wasn't a rock, it appeared to be metal, solid metal. In my other hand appeared another metal piece, it was easier to make out. It was longer, hollow in the middle, cold metal with a ridge at the end of it. REalizing with a sickness in my stomach, exactly what it was- a shell casing, oddly the piece in my other hand fit in it perfectly. It was the slug, the one that took her life.

I sat there in the dark, now freezing and scared. no longer crying but starting to understand my surroundings. I realized she had given them to me. The bullet, and the casing, and the note... though hard to read, and rarly remembered were all here for a reason. No longer had the last tear dried from my face than i started to feel a warm breeze, a sweet smell of honey suckle and a flicker of light. I slowly stand up, weak from the emotional drain of the experiance and suffering. HOlding myself against the wet cool wall of the cave I wonder towards the light in awe, still clutching the metal pieces in each hand. As I grow closer and closer, the breeze warms my cold fridged skin and the smell becomes more and more inviting. I can see the blue of the sky now, and I know that i'm almost out of the cave until i come to realize that I must climb to get out. The sky is above me, the sun barley able to reach my pale cold skin. Looking now at the two pieces i've cluched in my hands i realize I have to leave them behind in order to climb out. I know she gave them to me for a reason, as a reminder - but holding onto them will only keep me here, in this cold dark place where I dont belong even longer and i know where she wants me to be. I kiss the cold metal pieces and place them on the ground, around it I draw a heart and like magic they dissapear into the ground, the heart begins to light up, showing me roots on the climb up that i'm able to grasp as i climb. REaching for the first one I could feel a sort of magic around me, helping me find more and more places to grasp, more and more energy I'd not had in me moments before in order to get me to the top. Mud and rocks falling in my face and my hands bleeding from the pain of the climb I continue this for what seems like hours. My fingernails hurt, but the closer i get to the top, the stronger i feel and the better the sun feels on my skin. I rise out of the opening, and standing there is my daughter, surrounded by every friend i've ever had in my life. All of the people who i love and love me so dearly- even ones i've not met face to face. Each of these people have pushed me, pulled me or given me pep talks along the way to help me climb out of this hole and continue with the life i was meant to lead. each of them smiling- each of them giving me strength to continue and every second I realize they were sent to me by her.... even before she died. The entire clearning is surrounded by people, honey suckles and sun.

It's like heaven.... to me... I pick up my daughter, her grasp tight around my neck as she tells me 'I love you mommy, i can't wait to be a mommy just like you'. Life is good, the climb has been painful and what i'm leaving behind is and always will be with me, but nothing compared to the beauty that surrounds me in this lifetime!

Thank you- all of you, for your encouraging words, your laughter on rainy days, your jokes when i need a smile, your hug when the crying hurts so badly that i can't breath, the words of wisdom because you've been there, the empathy because you've not, the kindness you've shared, the pain you have healed and the time you have spent in my life.

Peace and Love to you all- ALL of you! I am lucky to have each of you in my life.


Tomorrows post will be a full account of her death. The day she died, the day before she died, the last words we spoke and a full account of my memory. It will be in tragic detail and I ask that if you do not want to know what i saw, felt and delt with taht you simply skip it. It is, however something i have to put on paper before i continue my book, and for you to fully understand ME as a person and how far i've come since her death. Much love to you all. Bambi

Dark Days Of Summer

I’m not going to pretend anymore this week. I don’t have anything uplifting to say to you that will make the world feel like an easier place to love, or an explaination of why I think things happen because frankly I have no idea.
I don’t like to dwell on the past, it just seems there are a few dates in the matter of a year that sneak up on me, and once they get close I can feel them breathing down my neck with a ridgid force of darkness. There isn’t much I can do really, not to avoid this date.

Five years it will be, July 17, 2003 at 1:10pm when my mom took her life, to ‘save’ us from watching her die in the hospital. I’ve grown a lot in five years. Learned a lot about humanity in general, learned to love myself for who I am and not what I see others think of me, or tell me I am. I’ve raised a child as a single mother and watched her single father do the same from a distance. She’s the light at the end of the dark hallway when it feels like you can’t run fast enough to get away from whatever it is that follows you, once you reach her, she takes it all away and causes nothing but peace.

Jaida will be with her dad for the next several days, taking my light, leaving me here alone in this cave of darkness wondering around clueless trying to figure out when, just WHEN this emotion will stop and go away or at least subside!
I cut all my hair off the other day. I feel like a pixie and I like it. I see the reaction in others eyes, the lie when they say it’s ok, or they think it’s cute. It makes me smile inside because just then, as the glimmer of a lie flickers from their eyes and glances another direction I feel her hand on my shoulder laughing with me, telling me that I am still me, no matter what I do to my hair (of course she would have hated it to be honest… “what about your long soft angelic hair” she’d say) to which has been gone so long now I hardly remember or care what I looked like with such beautiful locks.
 

I keep taking pictures, trying to prove that what I see in the mirror isn’t really as dark as it is when I see it. So I snap – I look, waiting for the right picture to show you guys that shows my hair how I love it so much right now. Nothing, the dark is still here……… hovering in my eyes, tears balled up behind them and a clinch in my throat seemingly permanent. Anyways, here is my hair cut.


I can’t help but look so hard, trying to find the light I know is there, the light I’ve worked on for so many years to know that it is myself I love, and all else follows but it’s not there today, it hasn’t been there but will return in a matter of a week.
I know some of my readers have lost a parent. One of you (cp) seem to have the same painful anniversaries as I do with our moms, and Suzy and her dad- she just has a funnier way of speaking of him. She is after all a comedian though, she gets paid for that shit.  right Suzy?? 

So here it is, what it feels like to me – when the anniversary of the day she died approaches:
I’m standing in a dark place, unable to see anything around me, unaware of where I really am or if this is only a dream. I bend down slowly to feel the hard cold earth beneath my feet. I begin to crawl with my hands outstretched in every direction, reaching for something… anything to grasp that will tell me where I am, show me that I’m ok and in a familiar place. I hear echos in the distance, drops of water? The whistling of the wind? I still look so hard and see nothing but pitch black. Finally my finger tips pass something, drawing my entire body in that direction. I put both hands out to feel the object in front of me, it is but a wall, wet, cold muddy wall, the same as the ground I had just lifted myself from. I begin to follow the wall, as if a blind person would with no guidance but their hands. I realize where I am now. it’s a cave. The deepest, darkest, coldest cave I have ever experienced. I begin to cry, feeling lost and totally alone. I don’t know which direction to go, because I simply cannot see anything. I don’t know what to feel except utter panic and my breath begins to shorten and my chest grows tight until my legs get weak and I sit down to collect my thoughts.

I’ve lost something, I don’t know where I am, what I’m doing and I don’t have the energy to go any further from here. Then I hear voices. Not just echos of water dropping to the muddy earth but to my left I hear voices. I sit quietly trying to understand what they are saying, I begin to crawl slowly in the direction of the sounds with one arm in front of me, to keep me from hitting anymore walls. I can hear the voices getting closer, yet I still cannot see. I am beginning to make out what they are saying, it is not many voices, just one……… one every familiar voice. I realized suddenly where I am. Who that was. What she was saying and it made no sense. “please take care of the animals” she muttered.
I sat back against the cold wet wall of the cave and held my head between my legs, tears streaming from my face. I knew where I was…. Again, every year I hear the same thing….. and so I sit, crying, listening to her read the note she left me
“Please take care of the animals. Bambi, I’m so sorry for this pain- but baby were not the nuts, just care takers! Suckers with lots of pitty for the pitiful. You stay strong girl! (detail left out for personal reasons) It is time for me to go, be free. PS- Do not kill yourself for others hurting your heart so bad”
The last words she whispers to me as the voice begins to fade away again ‘The value of time…. How true’
My breath falls to short quick pants and my eyes grow heavy, the tears falling now so fast they have literally become a stream and I realize the drops I’d been hearing were not water falling from the cave walls at all, but my own tears in echo that even I never saw coming. The day is here again, and in this cave I will stay. Feel safe, cry where nobody can see me, write when nobody can bother me, yell because sometimes it’s frustrating to have your only mother and best friend gone for the rest of your life, only visiting you in a silent dream when she feels it necessary. I lay down in on the hard cold earth, still unable to see anything and settle into the darkness that has taken over my eyes. I close them softly as my tears carress me to sleep…….
To Be Continued….

Thursday- Things that make me laugh or smile

I've decided to dedicate one day a week to the things in this world that make me laugh or maybe just smile. Since my posts are kind of boring and follow the same trek - meaning they are NOT random at all (ha) i'm going to put a little structure into my Day in the Life so here goes:

• Laugh- When my dog scamps goes outside and runs in circles around the front yard. he runs so hard and fast that he literally flips rocks at the house. This is a 6 pound Maltese that looks like a white floor mop with eyeballs. It IS one of the cutest, and funniest things to see... Seriously!



• Smile- When my daughter takes a bath in 'my' tub. The bathtub is a jet tub in the corner of my bedroom, so I can sit on the bed and read, make grocery lists etc while she is off in her own little world of bubbles. The funny part is when i've gotten so INTO whatever it is that i'm doing and I happen to look up, she's standing in the tub, nearly overflowing with bubbles, painting the tile with the bubble pile on her head. It's not so fun to clean up, but it's hilarious while she does it and quite calming to watch (until i realize how long it's going to take to clean it up)



• Laugh: This- morning hair, sipping milk off a spoon- THIS makes me laugh- Nuff said:

• Smile- My house and everything around, about, and in it. I LOVE IT HERE. (have i told you that before? didn't think so)



• Laugh - Memories of people, places and things. There are so many wonderful memories it's hard NOT to get lost in them. They tickle so much it's funny!



• Smile- The fact that i've saved TWO (yes two... ) Chipmunks from death by Cat today- Watching them scamper away as Keane struggles to chase after them, working so hard to excape my grip- makes me smile... (nature... not always so pretty.. is it!)



• Laugh- This strand of beads Jaida just put around my neck- I look like Marg Simpson!



• Laugh- The fact my daughter can make JUST as good Tard faces as I can. I'm so proud- Her Fifth Birthday is in two weeks. I dont know if it is the fact she's starting school this year, that she's a foot taller than most kids her age, or the fact she already has a crush on boys... but it scares me, makes me wish in a way that she would stay his little forever, then again... i look forward to our 'friendship' when she gets old enough that I dont have to be a strict mother 'constantly'. I look forward to it all- So I think for her birthday i'll get her a pink helmet- to match Mommy's!
  

Wherever you are in the world today, if the sun is out or the rain is pouring... no matter what, no matter where. I hope you can name at least 2 things that make you laugh, or smile. Not just a surface smile a real one you feel in your soul. Not just a giggle but a deep down laugh that tickles so deep that your face hurts when it's over. There are so many things to love and laugh about in the world that it is funny when sometimes we get stuck in that storm cloud of grey and can't seem to find any of them. One day the sun comes back out, blinds us and makes us realize that we can smile and laugh about everything in our lives, even the bad. EVEN if it means getting stuck in the Denver Airport for 8 hours, Flooded in on Grande Isle, LA- Not getting to eat your favorite cheese for weeks, or saving a few chipmunks and lizard eggs. No matter what it is, that makes us smile........ we should appreciate it, laugh at it, and cherish every single moment of it. After all- we really never know when we will be making our very last memory with someone, so it should be the best it can be, at all times.

Have you told everyone you love... that you love them today? You should- maybe, it will even make you smile!