The Good Life

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you've got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.” ~Maya Angelou

Things that made me smile recently:

• a text from a friend that reads, "What is the name of that yummy perfume you wear?"  I love this girl.  I have for years and always will.

• the sight of a bright green refrigerator in my classroom, the one bought for me by my uncles and aunts upon my high school graduation a LONG time ago, the one I took to Mizzou as a college freshman.  I hope to be a student there again...very soon.  (I'm keeping my fingers crossed.)
• my preschooler, annoyed with a classmate, expressing her desire that he be eaten by a shark.  I am not a bad mother:  I did talk to her about the importance of kindness and friendship.  I am amused, though, at the problem-solving skills of a four year-old.
• my ten year-old's discovery of the Psychedelic Furs...which met with her approval.
• my youngest daughter's love of her two Beatles t-shirts.  Again, she is the ripe old age of four.
• my college freshman's trust in my ability to edit her essays
• drawing cartoon daughters on the table at church
•  these quotes: 

"Every day you may make progress.  Every step may be fruitful...this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." -Sir Winston Churchill

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway.~Eleanor Roosevelt

Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best. ~David O. McKay 

• these photos...because I've learned that sometimes the best libraries aren't filled with books.  Can you read the unwritten words?

source, A Country Farmhouse

source, Faded Plains

source, My Sweet Savannah

Hope is the anchor of the soul, the stimulus to action, and the incentive to achievement.

You are leaving port under sealed orders and in a troubled period. You cannot know whither you are going or what you are to do. But why not take the Pilot on board who knows the nature of your sealed orders from the outset, and who will shape your entire voyage accordingly? He knows the shoals and the sandbanks, the rocks and the reefs, He will steer you safely into that celestial harbor where your anchor will be cast for eternity. Let His almighty nail-pierced hands hold the wheel, and you will be safe. ~Peter Marshall