This....

.....says it perfectly.

My Girl....

My firstborn, my daughter, the baby that I dreamt about having from the time I was a child myself....is officially a 10 year old.  An entire decade flashed by in the blink of an eye.  She turned double digits this past Sunday, on Mother's Day of all days.  It was a bittersweet day full of emotion for me.  It has gone by way too fast.  I want to push the pause button but know that's not possible. I do hope the next 10 years take their time and go slowly, I want to savour them.  She was named after my great-grandmother's maiden name, Ramey.  Her name means "from Reims"(the beautiful, ancient French city).  My great-grandmother was a fiery, determined redhead, but was also so kind, generous, spirited and loving....all things that seem to have been passed along to my daughter along with the name. The day she was born is when I truly started to understand life.....she's still teaching me every day how to grow and better myself at the same time as taking care of her.  I have a long way to go before I could ever claim to be a perfect mother, but she by far, has made all my dreams come true.

I love you, Ramey.  Thank you for being you.    

Shining Star....

For some major inspiration....click here.  For those of you who don't know NieNie (I don't personally know her either), for the record, she is a daily inspiration to me. I wanted to share her new video with you all. Her humanity just shines and her spiritual side sparkles. I thank my lucky stars for the good example that she is to all women and mothers everywhere......

Oh L'amour

When I woke up this morning, this popped into my mind.  True love, alongside my spirituality, is something that gives me a vast amount of hope.  Yes, love hurts once in a while.  As Joseph Campbell said, "love is the pain of being truly alive."  It may not always take the form we think it should or end up the way we wanted it to, but today I feel grateful for it either way.  Mr. Shakespeare sums it up better than I ever could; luckily for me he recorded it on paper so I'm able share it with you 401 years later...... 

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare, 1609