document kindness, life's selfless acts, beautiful moments and gentle amusements and encourage others to do the same

I met my best friend’s baby girl Sophie for the first time yesterday—finally! Not only was it amazing to meet this little person that is a part of two people I care deeply about, it was really something special to see my friend as a mother. Definitely one of life’s beautiful moments for me.
Now, I’m also a firm believer that not all babies are cute babies, but little Sophie is PRECIOUS! She’s the sweetest baby ever, and just laughs and smiles at everything. She’s my new favorite little person :)

for our move on Monday, from Minot, ND to Dayton, OH and our major furniture helpers are coming tomorrow to help us haul the big stuff. So, we decided to load as much as we could onto the truck with just the two of us today, mostly just the smaller boxes. I was carrying the boxes down from the upstairs, and then my husband was hauling the boxes out on a hand cart and putting them on to the truck. Something very heartwarming and interesting happened this afternoon when my husband was pulling loads of boxes out on the cart. As the afternoon wore on, a number of neighbors popped in and insisted on helping us with the boxes, thinking we were trying to load everything on our own. Then, one by one, cars were pulling over along our road asking if we needed any help taking out boxes. One neighbor we had never met in our six months here stopped in and started helping my husband carry out a few of the really heavy boxes. It was such a great reminder why the military family is a good one: our community, in some cases people we didn’t even know, were willing to take time out of their Saturday when they perceived someone else in need. We’re so fortunate to be surrounded by good people, whatever black hole the Air Force has dumped us in!

but this guy is adorable, rodent or not. He was just one tiny piece of an amazing trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Spending time here was the kind of experience that just grounds you again in what’s important, what’s real in life. The park was nearly deserted, with the only sound the breeze in my ears and the Western Meadowlarks singing in each tree we passed. It was heavenly, and a rare moment of beauty in life.

yesterday from my best friend. It was a little “pick me up” for the horrendous couple of months we had. I love good friends—they always know how to send a long distance hug when I’m hurting.

(my beagle) in the car with me today and trekked up to the Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge, just north of Minot. What a great way to spend a few hours of my Sunday! The refuge is a stop over for more than 200,000 birds during spring migration. Can you imagine? I got to see HUNDREDS of them today, taking a dip in the waters of Lake Darling, sunning themselves on the rocks, and even the occasional few darting in front of my car while I was driving down the gravel backroads. I saw western grebes, precious little killdeers running around in the road on their toothpick legs, northern flickers scratching around in the dirt looking for ants, Canadian geese, double-breasted cormorants, a flock of wild turkeys clucking along the side of the road, sharp-tailed grouse and blue-winged teals. They were amazing! The whole scene was incredibly majestic. I can’t wait to see when the babies get here in a couple of weeks!

I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t have the camera with me today—I sent it home with Joe. I plan to come back in a couple of weeks again, maybe try out another refuge near Bottineau, ND.

In the nightmare that has been the last two weeks, my family and friends have buoyed our spirits, kept us busy, made us laugh and saved us in innumerable ways. My sister drove to see us at the hospital where my stepdaughter was staying three days in a row. My husband’s family came from 3 1/2 hours away and sat over 10 hours in the hospital with us while we waited for Alexa to get out of surgery. My friend Lori called around and booked our stay at the Ronald McDonald house, and then found us a rental car for the week. There were dozens of phone calls, flower arrrangements and cards from everybody we know, keeping our attitudes positive and making us feel loved and supported. In times of crisis, it’s so comforting and uplifting to be surrounded by good people.

the other day, my husband and I were driving to the Base Exchange (BX). We constantly keep a keen eye for good wildlife sightings, as you never know when you’re going to see a prairie dog out in the fields, or a hawk flying over head. There’s always something interesting going on in the animal kingdom here. A stray moose has been on the loose in Minot recently, and I frequently see sasquatch type sightings of him reported in the local paper. As we were driving along, my husband noted that there was a big bird flying toward our car. I looked up, and the bird was flying so low that I could clearly see its features as it came into closer view. I noted, with a little bit of awe, that the bird of prey had a quite distinctive white head, curved beak and white tailfeathers. It was, of course, the most easily recognized, but infrequently sighted bird of all birds, the bald eagle! He flew right over the top of our car, so amazingly close we could make out every inch of him. The eagle was beautiful and just seeing him turned a boring Wednesday afternoon into something to talk about.

This couldn’t be a bigger “beautiful moment” in my life. Her and I have shared everything in our lives for the last 16 years, and I’m ecstatic that she has led both of us into this new phase, the unknown scary waters of childrearing! She had Sophie Kay (love that name!) at 9 am this morning by emergency C-section, and Sophie is a healthy, beautiful baby girl. I’m so devastated that I can’t be there to meet little Sophie, so I guess email and phone pics will have to do for now. Welcome to the world Sophie—your honorary auntie can’t wait to meet you!

is without question generous to a fault. I was just thinking about her a few minutes ago, and I had to make an entry about her under this heading because she is one of life’s kindnesses. When I reached my last two quarters of college, I found myself in a dilemma. My husband was going active duty in the Air Force again, and we were moving to Las Vegas, from Columbus, Ohio. Because I only had two quarters of school left, I was facing a residency problem: I couldn’t go to any other school, because I needed to spend 30 of my last 45 quarter hours at my home institution, Otterbein College. I wouldn’t be able to just pull up stakes and graduate from another college either, because I wouldn’t meet their residency requirements to be a graduate (most institutions require at least 45 hours (or more!) in their own system for you to graduate). After all of my time struggling to finish school, the last thing I wanted to do was have to make up more hours somewhere else paying more of our hard earned money to yet another college.
My husband and I tossed around many options, but kept getting stuck on the finances issue. If I stayed behind in Columbus and finished my degree at Otterbein, we simply couldn’t afford for me to rent somewhere: we couldn’t financially maintain two separate households. It was at this time that my friend Emily stepped in and insisted that I stay with her and her husband for my last two quarters of school. And she also mandated that there would be no exchange of money: she wouldn’t accept help with rent or utilities, because as she put it—they were paying those things anyway. I was humbled by the offer and tried to protest that I should pay rent of some sort, but they were adamant. They opened their home to me, and allowed me to finish my last two quarters of school without paying them anything. I still have in all of my life never experienced such generosity. We shared a wonderful four months living together, and it was only because of my amazing friend and her husband that I was able to graduate from college in a timely manner.
My husband and I were later able to fly them out to Las Vegas for a long weekend in a small gesture to repay their kindness. However, that being said, I will never repay my debt to them. Their hospitality and generosity gave me something priceless.

in my back yard. Which is strange, because I’ve been battling the squirrels for all the years I have been bird feeding. They hog all of the bird seed out of the feeders, bully and scare the birds away, they’ve gnawed holes in my bird feed containers, and they’ve even taken my pumpkins at Halloween to task, eating the poor face off of my jack-o-lantern. It has been a long and arduous battle with these inconsiderate little critters.
And now that I’m in North Dakota, and back to bird feeding, the squirrels are back too, hungry as ever. Only I can’t hate them here—the weather’s so bad, the winter so severe, that I actually pity the little buggers. I set up my usual squirrel diner, way far away from the sanctity of the bird feeders, in a back corner of my yard. And on the particularly cold days, when the squirrel diner is a bit crowded, a tiny black squirrel (they aren’t fat and bloated here like they were in Ohio) comes and crashes the bird feeders, treating himself to a buffet of black oil sunflower, peanuts and nyjer seed. I did my usual rap on the window to scare him, but he just stared right back at me. And since then, we’ve developed a little routine. Since I discovered that he’s not really scared of me, I take a handful of peanuts and wander outside, and the little cutie comes right up to me! He’s not frightened at all, and he let’s me sprinkle the peanuts on the ground right in front of him. He munches distractedly and pockets all of them into his cheeks, or buries them all around the yard. It’s so amusing and adorable! I just can’t resist him.