It's Friday! I'm In Love!

Thanks to Sandy of Sandy's Creations for having this blog tour. I LOVE this idea!!! Sandy has a great blog and she is such a funny, kind and very artistic person. I hope you will stop by and visit!

There are so many things I love and it is hard to choose ones that are more important than others. These are just a few things I love. There are so many more.

I love being alive, feeling the wind touch my skin and the feeling of the water in the pool I go to each week. I love the feeling of hugs, hugging my husband when he comes home, hugging my daughter, hugging my dogs. 

I love sunsets. I grew up on the prairies of South Dakota, where you could see for miles. I loved watching the sunset over the prairie. It seemed to last forever and ever and was worthy of taking a chair outside and just sitting there and quietly watching.

One of my favorite sunsets is the one that I see out the window of the house my sister-in-law, Joan. She lives in Colorado Springs and has a panoramic view of the Rockies.

I also love the sunset in Arizona, seen from the back deck of my mother-in-law and father-in-law. We love to have a little "cocktail hour" and watch the colors change as the sun sets. 

I love my dear husband who is so kind and loyal and brings me hot coffee in bed every morning. I think he is so cute, even cuter than when he was young, and I love his bald head. It is really fun to touch!!!

I love all of my family. I love my four brothers and their wives and children. I love my husband's family, who accept me as a part of their family. I love my in-laws who have taken me in as their daughter. This is a picture of them at the Arizona Botanical Garden's Chihuly Exhibit.

I love my mom, even though she has been gone since I have been eighteen. I remember her as a loving person, who was very sentimental and cried easily (I think she loved to cry!). She rated events according to the number of Kleenex's she used. Easter Sunday's church service was usually a four Kleenex event while parades going down the street of our little town were three- kleenex events. My husband surprised me by framing her wedding veil. I love it because it represents his love and her love. She would have cried when she saw Jud's surprise.

I love this icon of a Lakota Baby Jesus. It was painted by Father John Guliani and hangs on the wall of the dining room. It has beautiful gilding. Baby Jesus eyes seem to be watching us! Father Guliani periodically sends us postcards. He likes to remember the people who own his icon. I love that!

I love my daughter, who is whimsical and kind, artistic and bright, who loves old films and belt buckles and vintage clothes from the Salvation Army, who loves me even when I am crabby, who is such a wonderful woman. She reminds me of my mother and I know my mother would have loved her. When she gets out of bed (she spent the night in a box on the campus of her college where she is a student and a co-chairwoman of the Poverty Project).

Here she is! (on the left)

I love my friends. I love the Committee of Mothers, who meet over dinner and coffee. We say that our children were so difficult that it took a committee to raise them. I love my friends, old and new. Some have been my friends since childhood, such as my friend, Mary, who lives at the corner and is always there in a minute when there is a crisis. I love my college friends, many of whom I still communicate with each year. This is my dear friend, Donna. We are in our chicken pajamas because we just got done doing the chicken dance! We lead a woman's retreat in the Black Hills every year. Next year will be year number ten!

I love the world of blogging. People who aren't involved don't understand that you really can make real friends on the computer. I love reading about the lives of my friends and seeing the beautiful things they have created. I love meeting my blog friends in person and finding they are just as I have imagined. 

So many things I love. I guess I would end as I begun, I love being alive...feeling the gentle breeze  as it comes through my window. 

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