Boots McBlog

I’m a list maker.   I enjoy the art of organization of thoughts and deeds.  I don’t always love the execution of the list.  But I do heart a well deserved check mark.    I’ve spent the last few weeks finally making some long overdue checkmarks.   Getting projects done.  It feels amazing!   With a few missions accomplished,  I’m making new lists.  I’m also revising some older ones.  Over the last 3 years,  a version of this “to do” list has hung in my office.  I wrote it the summer I was president-elect of the Junior League.  I knew my schedule was about  to become overwhelming and I wanted to remind myself of the things I should never forget — especially as I was charged to lead an impressive organization of well-respected women.  Sadly, I  grew immune to reading it.   Yesterday,  I gave it the once over again.  Then,  I decided to update it.  I deleted a few items that were not authentic to me – things I had added because at time of the first draft they sounded “cool”  or they were items I thought others  expected of  me.    In their place, I’ve added items my younger self taught me and items a few folks I admire have shown me.  Most of all,  it is a list of  the things I expect of myself.    So,  behold my  re-issued forty-one items I pray in God’s grace  ”to do” everyday.

Believe in yourself

Make every moment count

Do what you love

Embrace change

Go where you have never gone

Have an adventure

Be the first to say hello

Be the last to say goodbye

Take nothing for granted

Be positive

Find your passion

Redefine the impossible

Dance

Settle for Excellence

Be a friend

Take chances

Find the beauty

Volunteer

Make someone’s day

BREATHE

See for yourself

Make a difference

Grow towards the Light

Savor the song

Be brave

Create memories

Think BIG

Say thank you…and mean it

Expect success

Laugh out LOUD

Take good notes

Live gracefully

Love fearlessly

Have faith

Be NEW and improved

Give a cheer

Blaze the trail

Pray without ceasing

Count your blessings

Leave a Legacy

SHINE

“Do you remember the best summer of your life?”

There are days I swear I’m living in the wrong generation.  I feel like an old soul.   I’m mesmerized by the fashions of the 1940′s and 50′s.   The  club music of those days makes me swoon.  The tales of men going off to war and the women who waited for  their soldiers’ letters of affection tug at my heart strings.     This was a time when the most immediate form of communication consisted of a telegram or Morris code or heaven forbid, a long distance phone call.  All were prohibitvely expensive.   It was a time before facebook, twitter, email, and cell phones.   Movie Stars were stars.   And small town, wide eyed girls dreamed of the big city.

In her memoirs,  Summer at Tiffany,  Marjorie Hart captures the essence of the era as she tells of the best summer of her life.    In 1945,  she and her best friend Marty left the Kappa House at their Univesity to find summer positions as shopgirls in New York City.   In a twist of fate,  they find jobs as the first female pages of Tiffany & Co.    It was a magical time of discovery for a small town girl who suddenly was amidst the social elite, Hollywood Stars, and handsome midshipmen.

The book is an engaging page turner.  I picked  it up at mid afternoon and by bedtime, I had closed the cover on a fairy tale come true.   Mrs. Hart’s storytelling is conversational and peppered with her actual letters home.  I felt as if I was sharing a cup of tea with a dear old friend.      If, like me,  you prefer your poolside reading to be less taxing on your brain and heart (no tearjerkers please!) ,  this is a perfect little read and it’s a perfect little gift for a friend.

Cheers and Happy Reading, Y’all!

I love a patriotic tune.  Asking me to pick a favorite is like asking me to pick a  favorite flavor of ice cream or a fave Christmas carol.   Patritotic songs started early for me.   I knew all the words to “God Bless America” by the time I was four.   I learned both versions of “This Land is Your Land” by the time I was six…. The accepted version  and the one my mother forbade.   You know the one.  You sang it, too – the hillbilly version – “This land is my land, it it isn’t your land, I’ve got a shotgun and you don’t got one.  I’ll  blow your tail off, if you don’t get off.  This land is private property”. By third grade when I had matured past the silly song , I embraced the words and tune to  ”You’re a Gand Ol Flag”.  It quickly became part of my repertoire of songs I would sing aloud.  I would belt it out with much bravado.  (Still do).  Even then,  I liked it’s allusion to “auld lang syne” –It’s like a little star spangled mash up.

The summer of ’84,  while American athletes like Mary Lou Retton and Greg Louganis were racking up gold medals in the Olympics, I was honing my “Star Spangled Banner”  pipes.    It was my shower song (or should I say anthem?).  The bathroom acoustics made me sure I was going to sing it for a packed house someday.  This was also the summer that Memorex cassette tapes had an ad campaign which said,  ”Is it live or is it memorex?”.  In the commercial, they would play a tape of a woman singing, the sound pouring out of a speaker next to a wine glass.  The glass would shatter from the intensity  of her voice.    One day,  after quite the patriotic shower performance in my parents’ master bath,  I heard a crack against their french doors.  I pulled back the curtain to see the entire glass had shattered.  WOW!   Who knew achieving the pinnacle note of our national anthem held such power.  I was scared to death to tell my parents my amazing voice had destroyed their bathroom windows.   I kept it to myself.  I wasn’t ready for the world tour.  I wasn’t even a teenager, yet.  I wanted to stay a kid, you know.   Years later,  I found out it was the scorching heat or my brother’s football – not my amazing voice – that cracked that glass.  (Not to mention, reality set in that my singing voice isn’t that amazing, at all.) At the age of eleven,  I picked up a baton for the first time.  Which means,  John Phillips Sousa was often the sound coming from my little jambox in the backyard.  I spent years twirling that baton to the sound of 2/2 time.   Stars and Stripes Forever.  The Marine Corp March.  The Liberty Bell March.  The Battle Hymn Republic.   To this day,  I stand a little taller when I hear a Sousa march.    And I can still do my twirling competition routine.

Time passes and years later the songs above remain dear to me.  I am in awe  of the poetic lyrics of “America the Beautiful”.  My heart SWELLS with pride as I sing the final words “MY home –  sweet home” of God Bless America.    Today,  we celebrate the freedom this country affords us.   The freedom to attend the church of our  choice.  The freedom  to write or read a blog.   The freedom to be friends with whom we choose and the freedom to spend time with our families.    There will be fireworks, hot dogs, apple pie and many patriotic tunes.    May we all take time to stop and remember the sacrifices which inpsired the composition of these lyrics and melodies which will make up our playlists today.  May our playlists not only be  tagged “songs for The Fourth of July”, but may we remember they are songs for us every. single. day.    The beautiful songs of freedom.

God Bless Y’all

and

God Bless America!

Favorite things that remind me of my Dad -

Riding shotgun in his pick up truck.

Singing “high hopes” at the top of our lungs.

Mixing salted peanuts into glass bottled coca colas.

And this poem~

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As everyone us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,

It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victor’s cup,

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

if i had my life to live over, i would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and stay that way later in the fall.

i would go to more dances.

i would ride more merry-go-rounds.

i would pick more daises.

~ nadine stair