If you would like to have your photo be the Wordless Wednesday feature, send us an email with WORDLESS WEDNESDAY in the subject line to info@mormonmommyblogs.com Make sure you attach the photos, where they were taken and a link to your blog so we can all start stalking you!

Form Follows Function is a basic element of good design.  The basic premise of it is that even if the design (sofa, chair, accessory, etc) is beautiful, if it does not fulfill it's purpose in a functional way it isn't a good design.  For instance, white couches are lovely.  They can be chic or modern, formal or casual...so many things.  Including a complete disaster were they to be in my home.  I have 2 small children, a husband and a dog.  A white couch in my house would be a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  That white couch wouldn't have a chance to fulfill it's destiny of beauty because it would be stained within 5 minutes of arrival.

Form follows function can be a difficult concept to understand.  But never fear.  I am here to help.  And I have pictures!  And examples!  And, hey, maybe it's not all that difficult.  But I still have pictures and examples.

My family enjoys dinner by candle light.  We enjoy it even more frequently in the winter because it's actually dark at dinner time.  So my options are to get the candles in and out of storage every night or have the candles sitting at the end of my table.  Looking a little something like this:










And put it all together in a simple way.  The candles add a lovely glow to our evening meals and the rocks won't catch fire from stray sparks.  It also weighs a ton and isn't easily moved.  Which means it has stayed on our table and has not traveled to other various locations, compliments of my children with a penchant for relocating things.

Now, this post is not meant to serve as a tutorial on how to make an awesome centerpiece like mine.  Although you can if you like.  The purpose is to give an example of how form can follow function.  I needed a centerpiece that performed the function of providing candlelight for my family.  And although it's nice to look at and has a good form, it is also functional.  As you go about your daily life it's good to stop for a moment and take a look at what you need.  What could you do to make your life just a little bit simpler through the design of your home?      

There is a popular saying in the design world, "If it isn't useful or beautiful, then it doesn't belong in your home".  So remember that saying and be grateful that your children are beautiful, if nothing else.



Once upon a time, this Lady got a degree in Interior Design.  She now spends her days taking care of her 2 little girls and 1 computer geek husband.  Although it can't be said that she likes to learn everything the hard way,  it can be said that she usually does.

You can read more on her personal blog Lady of Perpetual Chaos



 All Photos Taken by The Lady





 Interior Design 101: You  have questions? We have answers! (Well, about decorating and design  that is.) Leave your most burning decor questions in the comments, and  we will tackle them in upcoming posts! PLEASE leave your contact  information, because sometimes we need more information or a photo to  see just exactly what you're talking about. Thanks so much!  

Whenever I tell people I enjoy running they are often surprised.  How could anyone enjoy an activity that makes you so tired and can be painful?

They're right.  Running isn't easy.  And sometimes the actual runs are arduous and painful.  It takes work to accomplish any running goals I set and it takes time.  But it is so rewarding.  Starting a run is hard, but I always feel so rewarded and renewed when I am done.

We live in a world of comfort.  Physically with nice houses, warm beds, reliable (mostly) cars and emotionally, with detached emails, facebook friends and text messages.  These things aren't bad by themselves, but with all the comforts we have we are able to detach ourselves from life.

When you think about it, people search for and find all sorts of interesting ways to feel something.  To feel emotional, to feel joy, to feel happiness, to feel pain.  Some people find good outlets, but others turn to negative ones.

Life is about learning to find joy, and the journey to joy often means feeling pain.  Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden for the privilege of feeling pain as well as joy.  The last line of hymn number 124 - Be Still My Soul in our hymnbook says:

Throu thorny ways, leads to a joyful end.

Yes, feeling pain is hard, but it's not bad.  Don't be afraid to feel good pain.  It's just keeping us on the right path.

Running is hard.  Running can be painful, but I've learned to embrace the pain and use it to work towards my goals.



*That horribly unattractive picture is me from my files.  Yes, I was feeling the pain at that particular moment.  

I bought a man a cheeseburger the other day.

The kids and I had made our way to the fast food play land for cheap entertainment and free refills on drinks. I saw the man come in just after us and immediately noticed he was most definitely down on his luck.

He stood back quite a ways, counting his change. I ordered my ice creams and then turned to him and said, "What can I get you for dinner? It's on me tonight." He looked completely shocked and was very hesitant to answer. I smiled and said, "Anything you want!"

He sheepishly ordered a double cheeseburger and a coffee. No fries.

(This, by the way, the only time in my life I've ever purchased coffee!)

He kindly gave my boys each a quarter, assuring them that he wouldn't bite. We learned his name was Johnny.

We went off to play, and Johnny sat down to eat. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He ate slowly and deliberately.

I held my sweet baby in my arms and thought of Johnny's mother. I wondered if she is still alive. Johnny isn't young, so it's most likely she isn't. Did she know or care of the circumstances that her son was living in? Had she been a kind mother? What had caused Johnny's life to take the turn that it did?

I said a prayer for Johnny.

I said a prayer for my boys. I prayed that no matter where they go, or what curves life throws at them, they'll know I'm there. I can not shield them from pain, I can not ensure that they make good choices, but I can make certain they know, no matter what happens to them, as long as I live on this earth, they can come to me.

I hope Johnny's mother loved him. I hope he knew that.

I'll never know, but I can guarantee my own babies will know it.

In the words of Robert Munsch, "As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

And the blessing of being an eternal family means that promise continues onward, forever.


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Morgan has an affinity for cheeseburgers and her boys. Read more at The Ing Family. 

 

Sites We Heart:

While adding an additional 130+ blogs this past week to the MMB directory, we stumbled across some great music playlists:

None of your beeswax *especially love the Sufjan Stevens version of “Come Thou Fount”

Life is a gift – great, mellow tunes to listen to while you work on the ‘puter.

Passionista Presents – excellent new playlists every single month.

Posts We Heart:

Caption this Mormon Ad

Dance of Every Day Life

For Her (that’s one of the reasons I blog, too)

Sparkly Puffy Heart Love this Antique Window Frame

Want some FREE Easter-ish Clip Art?

Interesting Article on LDS Men & Marriage

Lastly, If you’re not reading Rabbit in the Headlights, you should be.

See you next week!

It is garden time at my house.  I really love putting in a garden with the family!  We spent a good amount of time today in the garden pulling weeds and planting new, good seeds. 

Raising children is similar to gardening.  We have to keep nourishing, and planting new seeds to strengthen the garden.  Keep your relationships with your teens, and other children alive and growing by having lots of good talk together, play together, and work together time. 

We can all think of long lists of things we need to weed out of our child’s garden, but if our nourishing relationship isn’t being worked on then the weeding will not work as well as you hope for. 

Focus your best efforts on bonding, talking, playing and working together and you will find correcting and directing your children much easier.

If your child won’t talk to you, schedule regular talk times each day or week. 

If you think you are too busy to repair your struggling relationship, change your schedule.  What is really most important?  Schedule a set time each day for relationship building time and make sure your child knows the schedule too.  Don’t just surprise her each day with it.  Make a plan and then start progressing each day.

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Nicholeen Peck is a popular public speaker, television personality, and author. Her blog is Teaching Self Government. The BBC show of her family can be found there, as well as answers to frequently asked parenting questions. To buy her book click here.

Last summer, my son wandered around our apartment courtyard eating dirt. A neighbor swept off her patio silently.

I said, “I haven’t met you,” as I walked toward her.

“Yes, you have, Polly,” she said. “In fact, I’ve met you twice since you moved in.”

I blinked. I smiled.

“My name is Mary,” she said.

She is very nice. After the awkward moment, we talked and she cooed over my delicious son - even though he tried to eat her potted hydrangea.

The very next day – no kidding, I walked in our apartment and a woman I didn’t recognize walked in also. She had glasses and a ponytail.

“Hi, are you new here?” I said. I felt a tinge of pride about my friendly and outgoing approach.

“Really?” she said. It was Mary. She said it slowly with that colloquial tonality we all use now to say “really?” As a side note, I just moved all the way across the country, and this “really?” thing is everywhere. You just can’t get away from cool one-word phrases these days.

What can you say? What do you say? When you are a total idiot, there really isn’t much you can do. I told her I’d make her cookies, but like that’s gonna happen. I have come to grips with my mediocrity, and since pregnancy, boat-loads of brain cells have gone missing. The best I can do is admit that I’m a candidate for experimental Alzheimer drugs and follow my son around yanking the rocks out of his mouth. It’s a grim existence in some aspects, but in others, it’s refreshing. Everyday is something new, even if I never even leave my apartment complex.


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Polly Scott lives and writes in Alexandria, VA.  As a sit-down comedian, she attempts to make meaning from life's trials through humor.  You can find more of her humor writing on www.comingtogrips.net.

Discombobulated. What a great word and the only one that comes close to describing me after four weeks as an ex‐pat in the United Kingdom. At least at church I hoped to regain a sense of normalcy; to relax with the predictable, to rest in the familiar. What a shock to find no emotional easy-chair there: I was odd-man out: totally different and just a little disenfranchised.

That same feeling did not seem so important on the streets. Three‐dimensional me did not expect to be included in a world that felt like a guidebook. At church though, people were more than postcards, and I wanted them to be enough like me to become Home-Away-From-Home. I shake my head now for not realizing then, that these members were more away-from-home than I was! Without a clue, we had landed in the most ethnically diverse, the most international ward, in all of London.

I remained oblivious and ill at ease too many Sundays, consumed by in the view out my own window, unaware of the many eyes tracking me with longing. Gratefully, there came a magic moment when we finally cross‐pollinated: a single event that shattered my window and forced me to absorb the light from someone else’s.

As soon as I walked into the chapel that morning, I felt drawn to the woman on the other side of the room. She watched me with a shy smile: perfect teeth and wide eyes glistening against a chocolate face. After three‐hours in the same meetings, she inched her way to me, ready to make contact. Her beauty at close range took my breath away.

“I love your hair,” she said.

What? It took a second to process her Nigerian spin on English. My hair? My hair is a mass of coarse curls, once brown, now streaked with unruly silver. I dislike it very much most days.

“I love your eyes and face and make‐up,” she continued passionately.

Blue eyes, white face, Bare Minerals.

“I love the way you talk ‐ and I love,” (much emphasis on ‘love’), “the way you dress.”

Without taking my eyes off hers, I mentally compared a tailored blue blazer and black skirt with her flowing, flamboyant, florescent…

Oh my! She thinks I’m exotic!

Sound of breaking glass.

A week later I was called as the Relief Society President of two hundred women from twenty different nations; a village with too many doors and windows to look like ‘Mormonville’ to me, but nevertheless, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets; one faith and one baptism. (Ephesians 4). My sole journal entry for 11 July, 2010 reads: “God help me. God help me.”

And he has. He has shown me that you cannot pack a box with scrapbooks, funeral potatoes, Snicker‐Doodle Primary props, stamp it “Mormon Women” and ship it overseas. He has taught me about the real Zion: a phenomenon that will not be defined or contained that way. It is organic: it breaths and grows and if necessary, shatters silly notions in order to expand.

I am still a bit discombobulated here in London, but that’s okay; humility makes the best glass cleaner. Just imagine how much of it I need to catch the light from two hundred very different windows.

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Mona will share more of the “windows” from her ward in future installments. She and her husband, Dale, moved to England by corporate assignment last summer and it hasn’t turned out at all the way she (or anyone else) expected. She writes about their marriage and experiences in Europe at: Mona’s Musings With A Hint of Romance, a PhD Program’s 2010 Top Mormon Blog Award winner: http://www.monasmusings.com/. She is also the author/creator of With Mine Own Hand: the Musical Account of Nephi, a musical drama bringing to life the writings of the prophet Nephi. The show has been recognized by the Music and Cultural Arts Division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a 2010 Deseret Dramatic Award, and is available to stakes and regions for production: http://www.nephi-story.com/.

 Today's Wordless Wednesday is from Anne Bradshaw. These photos were taken at Conway Castle, Wales, UK.


If you would like to have your photo be the Wordless Wednesday feature, send us an email with WORDLESS WEDNESDAY in the subject line to info@mormonmommyblogs.com Make sure you attach the photos, where they were taken and a link to your blog so we can all start stalking you!

Motherhood is glorious, but that's an overall assessment.  Any given slice of any given day can be ... well, less than glorious.  I've had a few days that I've declared hopeless about 15 minutes into them, and the fact that I don't crawl back into bed and quit is a small miracle.  I'm not always proud of how I live those days, but, lo and behold, I survive them.  On days like that, it's easy for a Mom Guilt Radar (admit it, you have one) to go off the charts, but we need to remember that this is all part of the package deal.  This is exactly the kind of lone and dreary world that Eve got kicked into, and we're right there with her.  Elder M. Russell Ballard said,

"We need to remember that the full commitment of motherhood and of  putting children first can be difficult. ... There  are moments of great joy and incredible fulfillment, but there are also  moments of a sense of inadequacy, monotony, and frustration. . . . Recognize that the joy of  motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating  times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and  satisfaction."

The bad days, the hard times-- they are normal.  And they make more out of of us than we give them credit for.  I came across this quote in an old Ensign article and I loved it:

"What we discover is that the good days and the bad days and the   ordinary days all mount into a cumulative total to build the strength   and durability you just can’t get any other way.  The good days alone  won’t make it. By stretching to overcome the bad  days, and continuing  to reach toward our best selves on the ordinary  days, we enlarge our  capacity for the charity [the apostle] Paul wrote about."  --Beppie Harrison

It's such a cool concept and it rings true for me.  I am a better person because I am a mother.  I'm also a worse person because I'm a mother, but I'm learning how to work through those newly-exposed weaknesses and become who I was meant to be.

Elder Neil L. Andersen taught,

"Sometimes in our repentance, in our daily efforts to become more  Christlike, we find ourselves repeatedly struggling with the same  difficulties. As if we were climbing a tree-covered mountain, at times  we don’t see our progress until we get closer to the top and look back  from the high ridges."

I know the occasional bad days won't go away, and that's okay. Life "in the trenches" will undoubtedly be fraught with both challenges and victories. My motherhood moves me daily toward the Savior, and that's just as it should be.
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Stephanie   is a mom of three young and relentless children. Her interests include   Latin music, naps, restaurants, writing, travel, teaching, housework   denial and long showers. Stephanie seeks for the divinity in motherhood--- tries to share it when she finds it, and tries to laugh when she doesn't. She blogs for fun, posterity, and therapy. Her  musings  are chronicled at Diapers and Divinity.






image credit

handmade books - Personal stories written for each gift receiver.  The kiddos generally helped me with the storyline.  I would illustrate them in black pen and let them add a little color using colored pencil.  {this first book was done with oil pastels...not recommended as we found they can smear a little :)}




lil' masterpieces - Small 6x8 wrapped canvas paintings.  I did most of them in oil, but acrylic is also wonderful, easy to use and to clean up.  This painting was given to my niece who loves to dance and her favorite colors are blue, green, and turquoise.

One of my family's favorite day trips is to go to one of the many nearby rivers and streams.  We pack up a picnic lunch, take the kids and the dog, find a spot that allows swimming and splashing and we spend the entire day together.  The girls always start off a little hesitant because of the cold of the water, but soon, they are swimming around like so many fishes.  It is always one of our best memories of the entire summer. 



Water, it is such an amazing thing to experience. It gives us pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction and life. I am sure that it was no accident that the Savior is referred to as "living water".

In John 4:14, the Savior taught that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is full of His tender mercies.  He heals our broken hearts, brings meaning into our lives, binds loved ones together forever, and brings great joy. It is a gospel that gives us wings to fly.
As we learn to embrace the Gospel more fully, we are filled with wonder and love. Our Savior proclaimed,

“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

He wants us to have abundance! He wants us to be happy! He wants us to be a joyful people!
Believe with all your hearts that He loves you, that He is mindful of you, that He wants you to return to Him. All is not lost. No matter what has happened in your life, His living waters are there for you to immerse yourself in. They are pure and clean and refreshing.



May each one of us drink deeply and often from the living waters of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Patty Ann is a busy mother, grandmother, and wife. She lives her life in the woods she loves up on the top of a beautiful mountain. She loves music, photography and writing. Most of all she loves her Heavenly Father and enjoys writing about his influence in her life. You can find her on her blog at Pitterle Postings

Michael Jordan.

Braden Bell and his wife have been married for eighteen years. They live outside of Nashville, TN, with their five children. Braden is the author of The Road Show and blogs at bradenbell.com.







Photo credit: Tungphoto (see portfolio) via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

 

Sites We Heart:

Liken 365: Such a great concept for a blog! He goes through his day, and then finds one scripture that he can liken unto himself and the things he did that day. LOVE THIS! It’s a great way to practically apply the scriptures to your life! Besides, he’s a BBoy, so what’s NOT to like?

Bishop Higgins: Good Gracious! Sweet Balls of Fire! We read this blog and seriously laughed so hard we were crying! The audio recording of his “executive secretary” leaving a message on someone’s phone about Scout Camp Physicals? We laughed so hard that we had to listen to it THREE TIMES to get the full impact of the humor. Bishop Higgins is hysterical and you are missing out if you don’t subscribe. Particularly on finding out what the 8th most popular sin was last week!

Modern Mormon Men: We love the subtle nod to Man Mens Don Draper. Only he has a bottle in his hand instead of that “other stuff.”  This is group project that has some of the wittiest of our male counterparts writing and waxing strong. It’s a great compilation and you should totally follow. Bishop Higgin’s Talk for General Conference is Must Read! As well as the Birthing Plan. They have a facebook page, too so make sure you Like Them. We do! 

Mormon Life Hacker: This blog is AWESOME! It’s a spin-off of the popular blog Life Hacker only he takes it one step further for us Mormons. He has figured out all sorts of Life Hacks to simplify Mormon Life: like how to pay your tithing online (we signed up—LOVE IT!) How to use Google Voice to connect with the youth or how to get daily scriptures delivered to your Kindle. This blog is an essential in any Mormons Reader!

Posts We Heart:

Get your free Easter Blog Templates

Have you seen the April Issue of The Barrel? Pink Sparkly Puffy Heart LURVE it!

Check out these awesome vinyl decals on glass frames. 

Daisies are the friendliest flower, don’t you think? (free printable)

Check out this awesome Easter Craft

Prone to Wander

And that’s what’s rockin’ our blog world this week!

 

_______________________________________________________________________

It’s a little late (and we’re oh so sorry!)

But the April VT Printable is finally here!

Click to download!

A crusty old sea captain steered his craft through a raging storm one night as his radar showed another ship directly in his path. “Give way, move aside” he bellowed into the radio. “No, you give way. Adjust your course” came back the reply.

Enraged, the captain radioed “Move! You are directly in my course.” The answer that came back immediately changed his perspective, “I am the lighthouse, you are the one that has to move!”

Perspective is everything. When we see things accurately, and within the bigger picture, when we “get it” and understand what is really happening and why, we can then figure things out and make good choices.

If you were driving along in the dark and could see only the turnings into cross streets and the forks in the road, you would be subject to all kinds of directional mistakes. But if you had your GPS and could see it all from above, adjusting your perspective to a mile, to five miles, to fifty miles, to the whole distance from where you are to where you want to go, you could then make all the right turns along the way.

The Plan of Salvation is the big picture, the big map that shows the destination, and the Restored Gospel is the clearly marked path. THE MAIN THING THAT THE RESTORATION TELLS US ABOUT OUR CHILDREN IS THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY OUR SPIRITUAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO CAME FROM THE SAME PREMORTAL LIFE THAT WE DID.

Knowing this changes the very way we perceive and think about our children! And it reminds us that they are as worthy of our respect as we are of theirs.

When we as LDS parents disrespect our children, we are forgetting that they are our spirit brothers and sisters, and that they have placed unbelievable trust in us by coming, as helpless infants, into our homes and our care, hoping we will guide and teach and lift them toward happy adulthood.

We forgetting that they could just as well be our parents!

Simply remembering and reminding ourselves of this can expand the respect we give them, and ultimately the respect they return to us.

This doesn’t mean we don’t discipline them, or correct them, or have high expectations of them. But it does mean that we try to do each of these things with gentleness, with perspective, with patience, and with respect.

You may not be (hopefully have never been) a blatantly disrespectful parent, one who verbally abuses your child in ugly and profane ways, but if we are not wary, disrespect creeps in through our tone of voice and even through the looks we give our children

The DAT formula:

For solid, conscientious parents who do generally treat their children with respect but who would still like to improve, we recommend “the DAT formula.”

D stands for decibels. Just turn down your volume a little, speak a little more softly, a little more calmly (most parents have learned that decibels are contagious, and that the louder they speak, the louder their children will respond (and vice versa.)

A is for agency. When we give children no choices or input on things we disrespect them as spirits. Of course we have to make most choices for them when they are small, but giving them as many choices as we can, as early as we can (things as simple as what color of juice they want) is not only a great teaching method, but a simple and direct way of respecting them.

T is for tone. Even when our decibels are OK, we often use a tone that is condescending or sarcastic or even mean or arbitrary—a tone we would never use with a friend or other person we respect.

For more (much more) on the spiritual solutions that come as we reflect on what we know about who our children are and where they come from, read the new book by Richard and Linda Eyre, 5 Spiritual Solutions to Everyday Parenting Challenges, now available wherever Deseret Books are sold.

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New York Times No. 1 bestselling authors Richard and Linda Eyre are the parents of nine children and, by coincidence, the authors of nine internationally distributed parenting and life-balance books. They lecture throughout the world on family-related topics. Their new book, "5 Spiritual Solutions for Everyday Parenting Challenges," is available at Deseret Book stores now.

Power Struggles




Nicholeen's blog is http://teachingselfgovernment.com Her book Parenting A House United is available HERE

One of the absolutely most frustrating things I've experience over the last week has been feeling helpless and useless.  My husband goes to work every day and does absolutely nothing.  While some departments are being stretched to their limit (or beyond), others are being under utilized.

(I understand.  I know we're in a state of emergency and not everything is going to work perfectly, but it's still extremely frustrating.)

While he is at work twiddling his thumbs, "on-call", waiting to be useful, I'm stuck at home with four kids going crazy.  (My only chance to help so far has been to donate some food and clothing, and then hugging the girls and making a salad for their dinner that night!  Which was awesome.  Not trying to diminish that at all.)

So I was thrilled to hear there was something I (and lots of other similarly frustrated moms) could do yesterday.

Right now there are many large groups coming through our base helping with relief efforts.  Roxanna was  asked if she could round up some people to put together sack lunches for 200 Rescue Workers.  She said "consider it done" and called the Relief Society president.

Together they organized a bunch of ladies to make "no-bake" cookies.
(We're not supposed to be using our ovens.  They use too much energy.)

Over $600 dollars of snack foods and apples were graciously donated.

Then, a separate group of ladies got together to assemble the bags of food while some teenagers helped out by watching the 237 kids over at Roxanna's house.  (Okay, maybe not quite that many.  But Mormon's have big families...there were lots of kids.)

After I dropped off my last batch of cookies, I went over to the P's to check on the kids.  The teenagers helping were totally on top of things.  All the kids were playing happily or eating snacks with a few babies napping upstairs.
The bags were assembled quickly and the packages were delivered to very grateful recipients yesterday afternoon.

It was great to be able to do something useful.  And I know all the other ladies felt the same way.

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~A Guest Post by Emily Warner.  You can read more of Emily's adventures in Japan and the aftermath of the Tsunami/Earthquake on her blog Acte Gratuit: A Look at Life in between Naps.

Since hearing of the horrible news of earthquakes and tsunamis going on in Japan recently.....I've been doing a lot of reminiscing.

When I was a senior in high school, our family welcomed a Japanese exchange student into our home.

Her name was Chie.

She was close to my age and this was her first time in the United States. She would be staying with us for a couple of weeks....during the day she would study and learn about our culture with the other Japanese students that came with her....and after school, she would spend time with our family. We would be her teachers.

It was a whirlwind of adventure and exploration for her.

I remember after returning home from my after school job, seeing her in our living room trying to communicate with what little English she knew with my family. She was always so happy. Because we didn't have a guest bedroom for her to use, I gladly let her stay in mine. I didn't mind. She loved the glow in the dark stars that were all over the walls in my bedroom. Lucy had put them there before she had gotten married and moved out. They. Were. The. Coolest.

I showed her different things that I liked. Country music. Books. Pictures of boys I thought were dreamy. I never was a 100% sure that she understood everything I said to her, but she always had a genuine smile and was eager to listen. She carried around with her a translation dictionary all the time. And if we were talking with her and asked her a question and she by some chance didn't have it with her, she would run as quick as lightening to get it so she could figure out to answer.

On the day they were to leave for home, I went with my Mom to take her to the place where all the other students would be waiting for their bus to come get them. I helped Chie with her suitcases and gave her a hug goodbye. It was then that I noticed her crying.

She didn't want to go.

She loved us.

She asked if I would take a picture with her. Of course I did. My mom shot one with her camera too.

I gave Chie another hug and told her that everything would be okay. That our family would keep in touch. That maybe one day I'd be able to go on a trip to Japan and visit her. She smiled at that.

I didn't realize how much our family was loved by her then.

I do now.

Every year at Christmastime, we received a card from Chie.

Every year.

She would write us these beautiful letters using her best english, telling us what she had been up to in her life. Graduating from school. Working at the Post office. Going to college and becoming a nurse. And my Mom would send her a card and sometimes a package of fun American stuff in return.

And the cards Chie sent! They were some of the coolest looking things I'd ever seen.

I've come to look forward to seeing those cards during the holidays when I visit my parents home every year.

It's been over 15 years now since I last saw Chie.

I pray her and her family are okay.

Wouldn't it be awesome one day for us to meet again?

Until then......



Katy is a wife, mother and enjoyer of all things chocolate.
She loves music, laughter, and the simple things in life.
Her roller coaster of thoughts can be found at our daisy life.
Admission is always free.

*picture self owned