Mine: Sunday Snapshots

James Taylor - "Carolina In My Mind"

My family is my life. Plain and simple. 
They are the ones who made me who I am.
I do not want to use any fancy words to try and concoct some sort explanation for what they mean to me.

My mom is my best girlfriend and my daddy, is well, my daddy. He was the litmus test to which all other men where compared.

And of course only one passed.

I am thankful for the faith they instilled in my along with the freedom to find my own way (however shaking and skewed that way may've been from time to time).

I pray, in my heart and from time to time aloud, that I might learn to be half of what they have been to me to my own one day.

I am thankful that I do not resent my parents and understand why He told us to "honor our father and mother", because I've caught a glimpse of just what the gravity of doing the opposite means.

Sometimes I wish it were still common place for all of the family to live under one roof. To have my husband, both sets of our parents, our siblings, nieces, nephews, and my future children (along with any other miscellaneous family that might want to join in) living together under one roof, that sounds pretty much like heaven to me. Anytime we talk about the political/economical woes of the day we always talk about our eventual commune we would escape to, and I secretly wish these times would hurry up and get here. I would give nothing more than to move away deep into the forest with those closest to me, grow our own crops, raise our own animals, even sew our own clothes and just live. Free of all the insanity of the world, free of the exposure, just free (as those before us truly intended). That, without a doubt, would be heaven...I really do pray that maybe one day it will come down to this. To start all over and rely completely on one another.

I know I have alot of growing up to do. In so many ways I am still a child. Still dreaming of my "Little House on the Prairie" promised life. But these past three years of life have been the most insightfully aging ones yet. And I know there are plenty more to come. And I am excited, scared, & most of all so very ready.

I am filled with Joy and a good chunk of hope.