Celebrate.

I just realized that it has been a while since I last wrote. Life has been...busy, to say the least. Graduations, wedding prep and more wedding prep have taken over! I keep getting asked how I'm feeling these last few weeks. I feel great. I know that the month is busy, but it's a good busy. This month is full of family and celebrations and love. If being busy means celebrating the things I'm getting to celebrate, then I'll take it. There are worse things in life than being busy. I am definitely taking time to smell the roses the last few weeks of planning this wedding. This is the only wedding I'm ever going to have. This is the last three weeks that I will ever get to plan a wedding. I will gladly offer guidance to my sisters, but it will never be the same.  I know that three weeks will fly by, but time still feels like it is crawling! The reason that the wedding is in May (aside from the fact that this long-distance stuff is for the birds!) is that it was my Momma's favorite month. I don't really know why, either. None of our birthdays are in this month and their wedding anniversary is in June, but she loved it. I think that later on in life she loved that May was when we all came home from school for the summer, but overall I really think she loved the warmth and the beauty that came with May. So Anthony and I decided to forever mark May as a celebration of love and warmth. Thinking about May being her favorite month has started me thinking lately about some other her other favorites in life and subsequently some of my favorites. I'd like to share some of those.
1. God. My mom was the most devoted servant of God. She enjoyed reading the Bible and delighted in making connections between what she was thinking/feeling and what she would read. She could have questioned a lot in her life, but she chose to remain steadfast in her faith.
2. Family. It sounds cliché but this really was her favorite thing. She was warm, silly, loving, funny, and any other wonderful adjective you can imagine. Being a wife and mother were the greatest jobs she ever could have held. She wanted us to feel loved every minute of every day. She succeeded. 
3. Laughter. So many times, my mom could get us rolling with laughter. She decided she wanted to be fun and lived that way. When we would call her crazy she would always reply, "Would you rather me be this way or be an old studdabubba?!" 
4. Preschool. She loved these kids. She would come home and tell us about the stories and give us updates on her "favorites." Being surrounded by the kids made her so happy. 
4. My Dad. Their relationship was surely not perfect, but no relationship is. They showed me, well all of us, that integrity, honor, and perseverance are to be highly regarded. My mom said "yes" to a date to the junior prom and held that man's hand all the way through the joys of life and the sadness of sickness. He wanted to save her and protect her, but all he could do was love her. I really don't think that they were meant to be apart. 
5. Dessert. Many people have told us that they've never seen a house that consistently has as much dessert as we do. My mom would have rather eaten chocolate ice cream, or cake or a milkshake than a chicken breast any day. She loved sweets. On any given night, she would fall asleep around 8 or 8:30, wake up around 10:30 or 11 and drink about 2-3 milkshakes. She never even used a cup. She would put her hood up, curl up on the couch, and drink the milkshake straight from the blender cup. 
6. Being outside. She was not outdoors-y. Not a camper or hiker or hunter or fisherman. But she could stay outside for 8-10 hours at a time. Grass cutting, yard maintenance, house maintenance, anything. She would come in every few hours and drink a glass of soda (water didn't taste like anything) and then go back outside for a few more hours. 
7. Life. Hers was way too short and she wasn't ready for it to be over, but she loved it. She fought like crazy to be here, but that wasn't part of the plan. She loved too much to be okay with leaving, but we have to be okay with her leaving. 


So there is just a small snippet into the favorites of my favorite woman. She was small, but she was a fighter. She was a lover, too. So bring on the wedding and bring on the celebrating!