Tag Archives: family

PKD Walk

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Some pics from the PKD Walk on Saturday. We had perfect September weather and the volunteers did a great job organizing everything. Some of the walkers had kidney disease themselves, some walked for family members and friends with it, and others walked in memory of a life lost to kidney disease as we did. That’s Meagan’s mom Debbie next to Andy, Meagan, me, and Doug (a.k.a. Mr. bookbabie) holding pinwheels with Kylie’s name on them. We raised over $1,200 in just two weeks, thanks to all of you who donated! It was so inspiring to see so many people get together to make something positive out of adversity and heartbreak:)

It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

pool days

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We have had a wonderful weekend here in Michigan. It’s been sunny and dry for three straight days (imagine that!). We finally cranked up the pool heater and on Saturday had some family over to swim. My brother and his gang came up from Louisville, those are his twins Laural and Davis in the pic with their one-year-old second cousin Aryielle. Aryielle is our newly diagnosed diabetic. She is doing pretty well, she doesn’t cry when she gets poked (just when they change her diapers!) and my sister (her grandma the nurse) and niece almost have her blood sugars regulated. Diabetes is a tough disease to manage, especially in a baby and we are now part of that club that is hoping and praying for a cure someday. Little Aryielle went swimming for the first time yesterday and loved it 🙂

weathering the storms

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We went to my sister’s for Father’s Day on Sunday. They all spent a rather hellish week at a children’s hospital with my niece’s one-year-old daughter who became very ill with Type 1 Diabetes that came on suddenly after a virus. We had no idea this could happen, it was very scary and quite a shock. After my son and daughter-in-law lost their unborn baby girl, my family could still count my parent’s great-grandchild blessings when they thought of our healthy, happy little Aryielle. Ha, said the Universe, not so fast! While googling Aryielle’s illness I came across a surprising fact, apparently the same rogue gene region that can trigger gluten intolerance can also cause Type 1 Diabetes. Something my family needs to keep in mind (I have one of the Celiac genes).

After we got home another storm blew in and this one brought along some marble-sized hail. Click on the pic above to see a larger version. It was pretty wild. Mr. bookbabie went out and scooped up a bowl of it (I have no idea why) so I took an iStock-like photo of it for him! What is going on with the weather? Is your weather as crazy as our is?

let it snow

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How did we spend our Easter weekend? Why shoveling the driveway of course. That’s my backyard, not last month, this morning! We had family over Friday night for an early holiday dinner and that’s what they had to contend with getting here, 8 inches of snow and rush hour traffic. We are nothing else if not stubborn here in Michigan and they came anyway. When my sister-in-law from Louisville was getting her son Evan’s winter coat out for the trip he complained, “No, it’s spring!” And she answered, “Not in Michigan!” Little did they know what was really in store for them. Joann was just considering the cold, she left their boots at home and the kids ended up trudging through the snow in their tennis shoes last night.

It was good to see everyone, although my mom wasn’t up to coming and that bummed us out. Like most moms she is the Queen Bee of our family and we missed her terribly last night. I would take all the bad weather Michigan can dish out and never complain again if I could just have my mom healthy again. Joann’s sister Jackie is also very sick and has been in our thoughts and prayers lately. So come to think of it, who cares about the stupid weather. From now on each time I start to whine about the weather I’m going to stop myself, dig up something to add to my “blessing list”, and say a prayer for family members who are dealing with serious illness right now.

Health is the thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year.
~Franklin Pierce Adams

be mine

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I know, I know, that picture is totally tacky, maybe even a little juvenile (okay, definitely juvenile) but I don’t care because it was fun to make! That’s me and my hubby last March on the beach in Carlsbad, California. We haven’t been on vacation since and we are getting the bug to bug out of Michigan once more. It snowed again yesterday, five more inches on top of a layer of slick ice, poor Mr. bookbabie slipped twice while snowblowing the driveway. It’s been a tough winter around here. This will be one of those springs where the entire state will wander outdoors on the first bright fifty-degree day without any coats on. We’ll all be grinning like fools as we tip our pale faces up toward the sun, our molelike eyes barely able to open against the glare, our hearts grateful to be putting another winter behind us (overwritten, but oh so true!). Today however, I am simply grateful for my partner. We’ve been through a lot together. You can’t be married for nearly thirty years without sharing a bucketful of joy and a few tears too. Happy Valentine’s Day my love!

If you and your sweetie have a stash of old love letters, my blogging buddy Bev can bind them into a handmade book for you, très romantique! She has a storefront on Etsy, a fabulous online place to shop for handmade gifts. Check out Bev’s store here.

happiness unplugged

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I’ve been thinking about happiness today, trying to put a finger on what it is and how to hold on to it when you have it. Yesterday, I suddenly realized that I was quite happy, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed. When I went to the grocery store people kept looking me in the eye, smiling, and saying hello. It was strange because I usually feel somewhat invisible. Not in a bad way, more like in an undercover, superhero kind of way. Like I can move stealthily through my day and not garner a lot of attention. Perhaps it’s the writer and artist in me, wanting to blend into the background so I can observe and gather bits and pieces of people’s lives for later use. But there was no hiding yesterday. I felt like I had a spotlight shining down on me exclaiming, “Hey, look at her, she’s a happy friendly person!”

The interesting thing is, I woke up yesterday with the same blessings and the very same worries that I had the day before. When I did a search for books about happiness on Amazon I got 260,732 results. That’s a lot of books, most of them proclaiming that they can teach people how to be happy. Which is probably a good thing because when I searched for depression I got 263,382 hits. A close race, but unless the results are tallied in Florida, I would say that depression wins hands down. Where am I going with this? I honestly don’t know. Just like I don’t know why I was feeling bummed on Wednesday but woke up happy on Thursday. But I do know this much, even though I lost my cloak of invisibility it felt pretty good to be happy, so I’m simply going to enjoy walking in that spotlight for as long as it keeps on shining.

The photo above is of my daughter-in-law Meagan, my niece Aryielle, and Mr. bookbabie at a family dinner. Every time Meagan smiled at her, the baby totally cracked up, it was so funny and sweet we had tears streaming down our faces from laughing so hard. I wanted an image that illustrated happiness and every time I see that picture I can’t help but smile:)

Some people never find it, some only pretend, but I just want to live happily ever after every now and then. Jimmy Buffet

snowflake zen

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This past Christmas my seven year old niece danced out on to our deck while it was lightly snowing (she rarely runs or walks anywhere, she twirls and flits about like a little pixie). Suddenly, she came back into the kitchen shouting, “Look, look, I caught a snowflake and they really do look like snowflakes!” Balancing on the tip of her index finger was a single white snowflake that was so big you could see its intricate shape with the naked eye. The adults laughed gently and went right back to their conversations, but Laurel continued to stare with awe at the snowflake as it melted and disappeared. Of all the gifts she opened that day, none elicited the same amount of excitement and joy as seeing the divine design of a snowflake with her own eyes for the very first time.

My sister Carrie took that photo of a snowflake on our mailbox at Thanksgiving with the macro setting on my Canon G9, it seems to be a year for giant snowflakes here in Michigan. If you’d like to make your own virtual snowflake, click here and start snipping!

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake… Francis Bacon, Sr.