I LOVE Tuesdays!

On Tuesdays friends come, lunch is prepared, and the basement fills up with croppers! Laughter and life stories (current and long past) are shared as we fill our albums with photos and memories. Occasionally there are a few tears. Tensions of the week melt away as we {ahem} complain a bit, raise child raising questions and fill each other in on everything from sales and decorating to good books, celebrity gossip and the current goings on with our families.

Sometimes we call it scrapbooking.
Sometimes we call it therapy!

Take a Moment to Remember

me·mo·ri·al

–noun

something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, etc., as a monument or a holiday.

–adjective

preserving the memory of a person or thing; commemorative: memorial services.  

of or pertaining to the memory.

When I think about all the memories that I have preserved in scrapbooks and picture frames, I am filled with gratitude for all the people, places and experiences that have made our lives what they are today. As a family, for generations, we have known possibility. We have traveled, known a myriad of professions, lived in many different parts of this country, and celebrated the milestones of our lives together.

Freely.

I'm sure I don't appreciate this freedom in the same way that my immigrant great grandparents appreciated it. Maybe I appreciate it a bit more than the youngest of the cousins...I hope so. As I honor the memory of all these family members - from young, to long gone - may I take a moment to remember that every aspect of our lives has been shaped by possibility, by choice, by freedom.

Today, and everyday, help me never to take that for granted.