Wednesday Wisdom: Mural Monday

I follow a hashtag on Instagram called #muralmonday. I love street art (not vandalism!).

I also love Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She’s a quiet leader. I purposefully used the present tense in the previous sentence because she leaves a legacy of a shining light. She will never die.

I value leadership that isn’t aggressive & confrontational. There’s a way to lead by respect & compassion, which is far more effective than fear-based leadership.

Keep leading us, RBG. And all you in leadership roles, lead with love.

-whoosh 

Cookbooks and Diaries

Mom's been gone over two years now, but I'm still going through things that were left behind. She loved to collect and cook food from recipes in these small cookbooks. You know, the cookbooks that are soft cover, staple-bound, thin and were provided by a food manufacturer. As you can see in the image below, there are some from Skinner, Hershey's, Campbells. There were dozens of them in a box. As I was flipping through them, this little "The Best is Yet to Come" booklet was in the stack. 

I opened it up and turns out it was a journal......

...and the first page I turn to is heartbreaking. 

I keep finding these types of journals everywhere. Most recently, I found a yellow paged legal pad that had diary entries jotted on it. I've found workbooks that accompanied daily meditations where she added a reflection, or just a fact or two of what life held that day. There was one I found that had days and days of words that described my dad's final days alive. 

While it's incredibly painful to come across these in such random fashion, I can't help but consider them sweet gifts. They are snapshots of her life. They were tough time times, grateful days, happy events. When I read them, I hear the words in my head in her voice. I can see her expressions in my mind's eye. 

I also adore the handwriting itself; the mixture of lower case & capital letters in wonky places. I see the diminishing quality of her handwriting through the years as she aged, and as she was sick. I wonder how many generations will go by before handwriting itself is obsolete? The journals I find will eventually be "ancient" like they way of hieroglyphs & petroglyphs.

I really don't know what to do with these journals. For now, I will hold on to them, for they are her. And I can hold her. <3

Twenty

 My Eldest turned twenty yesterday. It's hard to believe that I haven't aged, yet she has! :P 

+

Dear Eldest,

Here is a list of twenty things I absolutely love about you, in no particular order.....(which is an already long & growing list without limits):

1. Your smile!

2. Your laugh.

3. Your love of the elderly.

4. The way you miss your grandparents who've moved on to the next plane.

5. How you simp anime boys.

6. Harry Styles stan.

7. Your diverse taste & knowledge of music.

8. Those brown eyes....

9. How you can build the crap out of IKEA furniture.

10. Your handwriting.

11. How you desire to erase the negative stigma attached to mental illness.

12. Your passion for equality for all.

13. Your fierce defending of your Little Sister.

14. Your willingness to apologize (and mean it).

15. The way you hold me accountable to the standards I expect of you when we communicate during disagreements.

16. That crazy attachment to your truck (lol).

17. When you feel emotionally safe with me and share about your struggles & experimentation.

18. How you adore Gabe & Finn (@gabeandfinny IG).

19. How you've mindfully channeled your angry tendencies to a more calm and rational path. 

20. Your eloquent writing skills (keep it up!).

+

Happy birthday, and enjoy your twenties! xo

~momma

Flashback Friday: Galveston

Remember that time I went to Galveston during the Great Pandemic of 2020? 

Microwaves

 I bought a house!

YaY!

There's no microwave.

hahahahah!

I'm laughing because My Girls don't know life without one. 

I've been in the new house about a month or so, but have had a fridge for about 2+ weeks. We ate out almost all our meals, which was expensive, bloating and convenient.

Now that we have a fridge, I make food (or order it, sometimes, still - sadly). Leftovers! Leftovers get stored in the fridge. Yet, for some reason, leftovers can't get warmed up because we have no microwave. 

"Should I just throw the rest of this (entire meal) away since we can't re-heat it?"

Ummmmmm...... NnnNnnnNNNNNNNnnoooOOOoOoOooooooo.

YA RE-heat it!

So, guess who is getting lessons on how to warm up food? MY GIRLS.

The delayed gratification is so uncomfortable. "When are we getting a microwave???" and "Are we even going to get a microwave????" and "What kind of microwave are we getting? When's it get here?".

*SMH*

I think I'll keep the microwave purchase on hold a little while longer, so when the end-times come, My Girls will know how to cook for themselves. :P

 

Freedom | Happiness | Courage

Five.

Wordless Wednesday: Paper Flower