Positively (Im)perfect

It's that time again: time to acknowledge some great causes for January awareness before the short remainder of the month officially runs away from me! (Seriously, where did January go?). I've written about only two causes so there's enough room to communicate the importance of each without offically turning this into a novel. Paring it down to just a few was difficult since there are so many that deserve attention, but I think these two especially could use some heightened visibility: National Blood Donor Month: We hear it a constantly--or at least I did, growing up in the military as I did: "Give Blood!" It was stressed even more when I went off to "college," i.e., a military academy, which ran a blood drive at least twice a year. Every cadet was required to at least show up, and encouraged to donate if at all possible. It wasn't until I reached the real Army, though, that I understood the true necessity of giving blood. Once par

It has been another crazy week. Full of twists and turns and heart-rending circumstances and unexpected developments that have thrown every single plan we thought we had for a triple loop. I haven't exactly handled it with grace. I've blubbered to friends and railed against God and asked what the heck He means by all this and demanded that He be clear about His intentions...because in my current state of toddler spirituality, my illogic assumes that a tantrum will result in the answers I want. I imagine Him regarding me with the same loving exasperation with which I regard my tantruming three-year-old, sighing and shaking His head at me while smiling wanly, knowing how very long it will take for me to grow up and get it, but loving me fiercely all the same. If I try hard enough, of course, I can acknowledge the truth that my emotional state of affairs will not change reality, and sometimes God just has to wait till it's time to show me the answer. Yet that objective

Last night as we sat in mass, preparing to ring in the New Year with our wired three-year-old on my left and passed-out-exhausted five-year-old on my right, our pastor reminded us that 2015 is the Year of the Family. He talked about Pope Francis dedicating this year to the re-building of family, and the importance of bringing real, authentic love into the world, starting with those closest to us. Than he challenged us as mothers and fathers to "breathe life" into our families this coming year. Breathe Life. I liked the sound of it. I looked at our kids in their different active and non-active states around me, and my husband next to me, and I nodded in agreement. Yes, I would commit to Breathing Life into my family and make it a "non-resolution" in addition to my original focus of health that I just reflected on. 2015, I decided, would be the year of health and Breathing Life into my family. But this morning as I greet the new day and New Year with