Words to live by….

I read this book when I was younger, and now own a few written by this wonderful man, I thought I would share………

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN (a guide for Global Leadership) All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned: * Share everything. * Play fair. * Don’t hit people. * Put things back where you found them. * Clean up your own mess. * Don’t take things that aren’t yours. * Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. * Wash your hands before you eat. * Flush. * Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. * Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. * Take a nap every afternoon. * When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. * Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. * Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we. * And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. [Source: “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN” by Robert Fulghum

The story of our us…..

A friend of mine works for the newspaper and has to write a bridal section for an upcoming special feature.  She asked if she could use my wedding story, she needed me to write down a few pointers, like how we met, our life together, the proposal, the wedding and all the little tidbits in between.  Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG!! so wrong.  It turns out that is not a very easy task at all.  I hummed and hawed over it for awhile, I wanted to write it, but I wanted it to be perfect, I didn’t want to leave anything out.  I wrote and wrote and deleted and then deleted some more.  My problem was I was trying to write this great “story” about a couple who fell in love and got married, you know those great fairytales that you heard growing up.  The one’s that all started with once upon a time and always ended with… and they lived happily ever after.  But it felt like I was writing someone elses story ,trying to make pieces fit. I was trying to write it FOR someone else.  If I was going to write out our story, our fairytale, I wanted it to be just that “ours”…the story of us, for us.

So here goes…… Once upon a time there was a girl named Jodi.  She was not shy, but not bold either, very much a dreamer, and still very unsure of what laid ahead, and that scared her.  She was bright, but maybe didn’t always make the best decisions:) Friends were very important  and boys were thought of often but almost always thrown on the backburner, because really she had places to go and people to see and after kissing a few frogs wasn’t really in a rush to go out and find her prince just yet.  So on that fateful day when a boy named matt pulled up to her and her group of friends on the square in his mother’s minivan, Jodi thought nothing of it because in actuality Matt was a good friend of Jodi’s.  So even when he singled her out and asked her if she wanted a ride home she still thought nothing of it.  Matt was a few years older than Jodi, and a friend to all.  He was kind and gentle and everyone seemed to like him, but matt was very young at heart and very much liked to have a good time, and a good time is what he often had, maybe sometimes to good of a time. 

Matt pulled up to Jodi’s house, and as she was opening the door and thanking him for the ride home, he asked her if he could see her again.  Now this caught Jodi a little off guard and she wasn’t really to sure how to take it.  Was he asking as a friend, Jodi thought, or was it more than that.  She decided to take it as if it was a friend asking a friend and said sure pick me up at seven.  Well a friend asking a friend turned out to be the wrong scenerio and that one ride home turned into many, and soon after it wasn’t very often that you would see one without the other.  Roses were left on doorsteps, notes written, hours upon hours of conversation and laughter, so much laughter and then…… love happened. 

These two were young and in love and thought they had it all, then a curve was thrown and they decided to name that beautiful curve, Dylan.  The minute Dylan was laid into there arms there life was changed forever and they became a family.   There dreams changed, there dreams grew.  They grew up too, and fast.  They got there first apartment…….and so so many firsts happened there, first words, first steps, so many cherished firsts.  Now let me tell you it was not always easy,  there were late nights and words were said that may not have always been meant, and well, sometimes they were.  Being young they were thrown into the adult world, rent, car payments, diapers, formula all became the priority, and that young at heart boy named matt and that dreamer named Jodi, became mommy and daddy and kind of threw themselves into that role,  maybe forgetting who they were a little along the way.   Jodi had a hard time watching her friends move away and start new lives that didn’t always include her, she loved her life but couldn’t help but feel a little left behind, but looking at her baby knew she was right where she was supposed to be. 

After eating many peanutbutter and jam sandwiches and pinching pennies where they could be pinched, they finally had enough to buy there little white house.  Now Matt was much more excited, he could see past the wall to wall faux wood paneling much easier than Jodi could, but in the end they both knew that this was meant to be theres.  And with this little white house on hincks street many wonderful things came, a crazy little puppy named donovan became an instant bestfriend to Dylan, and a year later a wonderful gift, Owen.  There little family of three opened there arms and became a four.  

 The road was not always paved and a few detours had to be taken, but eventually mommy and daddy slowly started looking at eachother again as Matt and Jodi and with that,  the laughter came back …and again… love happened.   Fast forward to February 14th, 2008…. Jodi had just returned home from dropping Dylan off at beaver’s ( Dylan being 6) to matt, and their Owen not feeling so well sleeping on the couch.  She thought she would be cute and coy and exclaim to Matt that she had brought him dinner (A&W to be exact) for Valentine’s day, and a  “sheesh what did you bring me”…being totally sarcastic, which was an on going tone between the two of them.  Turning around from closing the door Jodi’s breath was taken away when she looked down to Matt on one knee answering her with  “well I brought you this.” 

A year and a half later, a new house, new job for matt, and their boys growing way to fast…August 8th 2009  finally arrived.  Standing in front of everyone they loved and everyone who loved them, Matt, still that very kind and gentle young at heart boy, took  Jodi that not shy, but not bold either, very much a dreamer, girl, by the hand, and together promised eachother forever. 

and they lived mostly happily ever after…….