The Cheerleader

September 11, 2013

Guess who's writing at Joli today? Please, go over there and check out my blog post- and leave a comment. Okay?

{dear Freddie}

August 29, 2013

Twenty-one

• the legal age to drink & gamble in the United States
• the number of spots on a standard die
• Chester A. Arthur was the 21st president of the US
• is the name of a New York city restaurant
• the jersey number of Sammy Sosa & Tim Duncan
• the age at which you can rent a car in most places in the US
• you can buy a handgun once you're twenty-one in most states
• it's the atomic number of the element Scandium
• it's the weight of the soul in grams, according to Duncan Macdougal. He tried to prove that the soul was a physical part of the body, with actual mass, by weighing dying patients
• is the standard TCP/IP number for an FTP connection
• 21 demands were sent from Japan to the Chinese government in 1915
• Gustave Whitehead allegedly flew a plane called Number 21 two years before the Wrigth brothers' first flight
• it put an end to prohibition in the US. It was the Twenty-First Amendment which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, and re-legalized alcohol
• it's a Fibonacci number, a Harshad number, a Motzkin number, a triangular number & an octagonal number
• it is a composite number
• it's the fifth discrete bi-prime 
• the sum of divisors for the integers 1 through 5 is 21
• 21 is the smallest number of differently sized squares needed to square the square
• it is a proper number
• Ecclesiastes is the 21st book of the Bible
• "So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." is the 21st verse in the Bible
• in the King James version, was is the 21st word in the Bible
• cows graze in the wild in groups of an average of 21
• the number of times I've thought about burning your clothes in a pile in the front yard
• the average number of times I think about you in a day when we're not together
• about how many times you've lovingly taken care of me when I was too sick to take care of myself
• average number of  hours you work a day to provide for us
• the number of times you've told Karli's birth story {and I've laughed every time}
• it's how many years that I've been utterly & completely blessed to finally be the woman that I was born to be~ your wife!

We have actually been married now for longer than we have not been married. It has certainly been interesting, difficult, fun, scary, difficult, & exciting. I thank God that your mom asked me to marry you all those years ago. I am so proud to be your wife. I appreciate every little thing that you do for me and for our kids. You amaze me daily with your strength and energy and stamina. I don't know how you do what you do, but I am so glad for it. I pray that God will continue to sustain you, and fill you with Him. To say that I love you is such an understatement. My feelings for you are so much more and go so much deeper than that. You are where I belong. You are my home. You complete me. {yes. I know. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, too. Sorry. The truth is kind of gross sometimes.}

So, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Here's to an infinity ahead of us.
Always,
Dana

{love note}

August 26, 2013

From time to time
life gets the better of us.
We get overwhelmed with commitments
and responsibilities.
Things get pushed and shoved into
the corner marked for later.
The dirt piles up.
And it's sloppy and messy.
Seems like it's useless,
except to remind us of our shortcomings.
But, God loves us through it all
and He can {and does} use every
situation to show us His love for us.
He is with us and will not leave us.
And when we need to be reminded,
He will scribble a love note in the dirt.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person- though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved-" Ephesians 2:4-5

{everything in its own time}

August 21, 2013

It's amazing how quickly summer fun in the sun can turn into
a longing deep within me to start nestling into cozy fall days.
Summer is our Go Time.
We turn on the after burners and just fly.
And before I realize that we've gotten our fill of the carefree life,
I get that warm burn in the pit of my stomach
begging me to slow down,
settle down,
hunker down,
gather the little chicks around me,
and start preparing our nest for something deeper.

Yes, we make plenty of happy memories during the summer.
But, fall is for regrouping.
It's when we focus less on our physical selves
and turn our intentions on feeding the bond of our hearts.
A re-connection at a more spiritual level.
It's time for memories that are more of being than of doing.

We've had a great summer,
topped off with a much needed FAMILY vacation.
It was amazing and no one was ready to come home.
We played hard this summer.
And it was certainly one worthy of being remembered.

But, now, as the temperatures hint at the possibility of slowly
dropping over the coming months,
I welcome the change.

"What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God." Ecclesiastes 3:9-13