He almost knocked me off of the stairs as he flung his noise into mine, wrapping me up with his head tucked in under my rib cage. I could just feel that his eyes were squeezed tightly shut and his heart was must have been the epitome of “lub dub”, a throbbing he had no choice but to express outwardly or it might just burst.

Because for just over 10 min, no more than that because my hands instantly were freezing, a struggle you don’t fully understand unless you’ve got hands like mine, I’d played in the snow with him.
And upon walking back inside, anxious to unpeel the layers and warm up, he’d come running back over to me and enveloped me in the tightest 6 year old boy hug ever, “mom!!! Thank you so much for playing in the snow with me!!!”

And with one last extra tight squeeze he scampered off to shovel the driveway, his favorite thing ever.

Secret to Happiness

Maybe Indiana Jones, King Arthur and others were wrong. Maybe there is no search for the holy grail. Maybe the secret to forever, to eternal youth and happiness is hidden in the most simple of things. So simple it’s the reason I hide Christmas presents in the open each year because they are so easily ignored.

How can we have over 400 words to describe snow and over 100 for rain? How can we call someone we don’t like a long list of this and that’s and name off a bazillion words for things that are ugly or awful but in order to express gratitude there are only two words,

Thank you.

Just Love Them


In a world of how-tos and never enoughs can I boldly declare that how-to will never work. If all of it did, we wouldn’t be circling our way down a toilet hole as society.

Maybe what our kids need, to just love them. Guide them, teach them, be invested in them, yes. But first just build a relationship with them.

My love brought forth unprovoked gratitude.

No, “now say thank you.” Or “you need to take turns because that’s how a good person acts”

Power of Love


It came naturally because love does that, it reaches into hearts and plucks the strings of a song you cannot place inside of them.

Now bring on tattle telling and fighting because truth always brings the test.😆