I am Beautiful

Need I say more?

I am a Wagon-eer

There are not many things that I love more than a good wagon.

And I'm not talking about the cute little red wagons that we all commandeered as children. I'm talking about the timeless classic: the Station Wagon.

Having arrived at a certain station of motherhood, one might be led to believe that I drive a wagon as a rebellious gesture toward the mini-van. While I am not personally a driver of the mini-van, I have nothing against it. It's fine. My love for the wagon is just that: love for the wagon. My wagon-love is pure. It surely does not come from acting in contra to the oft-smirked cliche that people with two children frequently whisper to one another, then defiantly stick out their chests about, and finally cling to when shopping for their first family car.

No, my love for the wagon began long before the 80's heralding mini-van was ever born. My love for the wagon began in Her day: In the gold and green decade of bell-bottoms and the Bradys. Who can hail from such an era and not have an innate fondness for the Sta-wag? Born while riding in the belly of the beast, floating through time and space (and the late 70s), the road ahead barely perceptible beneath your seat? The hot vinyl, the sleek design, and of course, the ever-loving panel.

Yes, different from the current cliche of driving something NOT to be driving a mini-van, I didn't choose my car to spite the mini-van, I chose it because I was born a wagoneer.

I am a John Denverite

It probably goes without saying, but I'm not going to go without saying it: John Denver is my soulmate. I do not speak of him in the past tense, for I scarcely think of him as gone. As long as there is "sunshine on my shoulders," and a feeling within me that "I guess I'd rather be in Colorado," his will be the voice that I hear whenever I see a "Rocky Mountain, high." You see, John is singing to me. I feel the emotion that he pours into that one, beautiful, sustained note in For You, and I grin at the wise crack he mumbles about the "gal down the road" in Grandma's Feather Bed. I weep with young Vandy when Darcy Farrow's pony stumbles and I soar like an eagle when he is Looking For Space. A true fan indeed, I have seen him at his lowest low (that horrifying 80's music video where you can't help but look away), to his highest high (his last concert in Denver at Fiddler's Green). Fools have mocked (me), but they will be scorned -and surprised- when they arrive in Heaven to find me with John, sitting side by side. Him strumming his guitar and me singing harmony to Country Roads.

I hope you have "come home" again John.

You always did belong in a beautiful place.

Until then (see above ;), rest in peace.

I am a Marathoner

26.2 miles

I'm with Marjorie

"The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache." — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I am a Colorado Girl

My roots are planted deeply in Colorado. Almost everything I know and love about myself, I learned as a fledgling girl in Colorado. Some of what I learned about myself was just a glimpse and a beginning, and some of it was so firm and sound that it became my foundation. In Colorado you can run and breathe; you can climb and then climb higher. The sky is bright, and the mountains soar. And souls awaken. My Colorado is full of quiet places in which to think and grow. Places so quiet that the stillness silenced even the loudest voices. Paths and trails along rocks and rivers where I discovered and picked up little pieces of me until I eventually began to see myself.

And now as I roam, I take that Colorado Girl with me. She is in me and around me and of me. She is me. She is a fledgling no more, but is still planted firmly. I see her everyday and not just in my lack of skill with a lipstick or in my compulsion to follow a trail to see where it goes (and to find all of the pieces I've yet to find); it's in my love of nature and beauty and all things Divine. It's in my relationship with Him and how I came to know Him there. And in my soul composed of the pieces that He has helped me find. They are everything that He made me to be, and for that reason, and for all of my little "reasons," I count myself lucky to be a Colorado Girl.