happy birthday caitlyn!

March 21, 2016

We celebrated my dad's birthday with just enough sugar and helium to last us until next year. It was so much fun celebrating with the entire family together, and all he asked for on his special day was to play a round of scattergories. He loves game nights that do not involve the game Trouble (because it's the only game my mom will ever play!)


There aren't a lot of people I would consider "my very best friends," but my dad is one of them. I could talk to him about anything in this world, and I hope he knows how much I love and look up to him. If you know him, you would agree with me - he's going STRAIGHT UP TO HEAVEN when he dies because he's the best person you will ever meet/know. I might not make it up there with him, since I called him Caitlyn in this post (and he will understand why...) but some things just have to be done.

Love you x infinity dad!

"to not only love each other more, but to love each other better"

March 9, 2016

I had originally drafted this post a few months ago, but I wanted to post it after "International Women's Day" (which I honestly thought was like a European Mother's Day or something).  

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, 
but backwards and in high heels."

If you're a woman, you'll understand that there is nothing quite like getting together with a group of really good friends and spending an entire night talking. At my bridal shower I remember being told that the best advice for marriage was "to keep your girlfriends." I thought that advice was perhaps a little bit sarcastic and funny at the time, but after my own experience, I can't tell you how honest and real it has become for me. I got together with a couple of friends a few weeks ago and although the night consisted of eating muddy buddies and sitting on a living room floor for three hours, I went to bed telling Max just how amazing these women are, and how good I feel about myself around them. And as much as I love my husband, there are just some things that women need - and that's each other.

A few days later, I met with a different group of women for a church meeting. We are all at various stages in life, different ages and personalities, different jobs, different backgrounds and interests, but we get together once a month to meet and discuss our roles and responsibilities regarding our church callings. And I've always enjoyed our meetings, but this time after we finished discussing what was on the agenda, we just started to talk to each other. And we talked and we talked and we talked. Everything from marriage and kids, to Bruce Caitlyn Jenner and books we'd recommend... and I think at least four or five times I heard someone say, "It's so nice to be able to open up..." -- by the end of the night I felt like these women had been three of my lifelong friends. Friends who could just talk and share and be there for one another, even if we didn't really know each other all that well the day before. I went to bed that night again, telling Max just how much relationships like these mean to me.

Frankly, I've always felt like "guys were easier to be friends with," but the older I've grown, the more I've realized just how much women need each other. We need to be each other's teammates and cheerleaders and friends. I don't understand and I can't tell you why it seems easier to pit women against women, or why women tend to compete with one another, but I like the charge Bonnie Oscarson once gave: "I invite you [women] to not only love each other more, but to love each other better."

What I've Been Reading Lately....

March 8, 2016


“You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.” 
-Jojo Moyes, Me Before You






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“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.” 

“Loving someone is like moving into a house. At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without their creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.” 
- Fredrik Backman,  A Man Called Ove
                                          ---

“Sometimes broken things deserve to be repaired.” 
- Camron Wright, The Rent Collector 





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The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are.” 
- Amy Poehler, Yes Please

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