For Crying Out Loud

Let’s just be real here. Parenting with the first child is totally a learn-as-we-go-along experience. My husband and I have laughed many times about our many trial and error moments in parenting! Sometimes things accidentally work out great and other times, even with planning and calculation our best ideas are a giant flop. Don’t worry, we’ve apologized to our oldest child. :) Against that backdrop, we entered into the era of cell phones.  Our then eleven year old daughter was babysitting a lot and many families no longer have a landline, making a cell phone a must. The whole cell phone conversation caught us by surprise and happened earlier than we originally imagined it would. (We seriously thought she would enter the cell phone phase when she got a car.) As we began to look for the best deals on phones, we found several used iPhones at a very low cost. My husband and I are both iPhone users, and know how much we love our phones, so we chose a used iPhone that cost a v...

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking about how odd it is to put a day on the calendar reminding us to show our love to others. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE holidays, date nights and dressing up! I love celebrating the ones I love, thinking of thoughtful gifts and having a reason to jot down special words for them. I also truly believe celebrating each other, setting aside special times and even funds to share our love will encourage and fan the flames in our relationship, making it stronger over time. Date night! But here's what has me thinking this week… I hope I never need a calendar (or social media) reminder to “love” the ones closest to me. You know, the ones easy to overlook sometimes. I hope to remember that every day is a chance to show love. It’s easy to act lovingly when we feel loved:  when the sun is shining and skies are blue when we’re by the ocean or in the mountains when we’ve carved out time for each other when we feel all the l...