Give Me Five

Ronnica from Ignorant Historian, who is anything but, gifted out five words especially for me. I asked for them though, so maybe they weren't really a gift, because that would be rude to ask for a gift.

Okay, so here's how this works: she got five words from someone, she blogged on each of the five words, offered to provide five words to anyone who wanted them, I took her up on the offer, I received my five words, and now I will blog about them. Get it?

You'll be able to tell they were thought up especially for me though. If you're not too scared by all of this craziness, I'll gift you five words specifically for you. Just ask.

1. Daisy
I could just say, "The daisy makes me happy," but in all fairness a little more narrative is expected, at least from Ronnica.

You might be surprised to know that for years I discouraged my husband from getting me fresh flowers for our anniversary or any other occasion. I thought it was such a waste. The thing was, I usually got roses, and I don't like roses (my father-in-law is going to cringe when he reads that).

As many things today are less expensive to buy than they were five or ten years ago, and also easier to find in common stores (grocery, discount), so are fresh flowers. Several years ago I realized there was more out there than just the rose, and that you don't have to get a bouquet of something to have fresh flowers. The gerbera daisy is the one that caught my eye from the beginning and is easily my favorite flower. I love their large size and the color choices available. I also like to put them in planter pots outside and not just in vases in my house.

In a nutshell, the daisy makes me happy.

2. Children
I have a lot of them.

Hubby and I talked about not ever having any, by choice, many, many years ago when we were first married.

We said if we ever had any, we wanted two. Twin girls.

We decided we wanted to have children, and had difficulty conceiving.

We had two miscarriages before I got pregnant with the girls. Twin girls!

Our girls are truly miracles, being born at 27 weeks.

Even though our boys weren't born that early (three days and 13 days doesn't really qualify), they are still miracles when you think about all the things that have to go right.

Our children are gifts from God.

3. Holiday
Now this one is interesting. Which one? All of them? This is the word Ronnica gave me which sort of stuck out a little from the rest and seemed a little difficult for me to pinpoint.

My first thoughts went to Christmas. It's easily my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving, too, but it's sort of the warm-up act. The day following Thanksgiving is when we used to put up our Christmas tree, so it's like that was the marker for the season to begin.

Every year when I was growing up Christmas was the same. I never wondered what I would be doing. I would find a flashlight before I went to bed on Christmas eve, hide it under my pillow, sneak out during the night to take a peek at the goodies, and then the next morning we would get to open our gifts and get ready to go to my Grandpa and Grandma's house. Since I didn't grow up knowing my natural father or his family, I only had the one side of the family.

We always had homemade chicken pie for lunch. It's kind of like chicken pot pie with no vegetables, which of course is right up my alley of no food in my food. It dates back to at least when my mom was a child, and she was born during WWII. I'm guessing that maybe they didn't put vegetables in it originally because of food shortages during the Depression or WWII, but that's just a guess. I'm just glad there aren't any vegetables.

The Christmas holiday was never complete without reading the Christmas story from Luke before the four of us grandkids got to open our 'socks' from Grandpa and Grandma. Then everyone opened their presents.

The holiday in our house has maintained much of this tradition. We've never lived closer than five hours away from our families since we've had children. Hubby and I decided early on that we would build a tradition in our own home rather than transporting them all over the place every year. With the exception of two years when the children were very small we've always spent the holiday in our own home, wherever that has happened to be.

By the way, I've only had artificial trees, I love excessive lights, and I don't do a themed tree. I probably won't ever do anything but artificial now because I know I'm allergic. I'm using that excuse to get past the one about the messy needles on my carpet.

4. Organization
Now I'm supposed to keep this short, right?

I can tell people in my house where to find obscure items because of organization.

I look at things and try to figure out ways to better organize them. It doesn't matter if it's in someone else's home.

I've helped several friends with organization projects. Some were small projects in their homes, some were with their scrapbooking supplies, etc. I jump at the chance.

I think just as we do a spring cleaning, we should do a spring organization at least once a year of every space. Things need cleared out, cleaned out, rearranged, tidied, etc. I can tell it's time for me to do this when I start getting frustrated with an area. If I'm having trouble finding something in its normal place, things are messier than usual, I've added additional things to an area and it seems to be overflowing, or something along these lines, I know it's time for an organization intervention. I don't wait around.

I'm addicted to organization shows on television. I could care less if they are re-runs and I've seen them before.

Some of my kids think I'm a freak. Just wait until they are out on their own and can't find stuff. Boy, are they going to appreciate me then!

5. Home
We've had many.

There's the saying, "It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home." I think when you move often, in our case as a military family, you find this to be true. We had apartments, military quarters, two of our own small homes, rental homes. They were all home when we were together as a family.

Our new home is really a dream come true for us. We never imagined we'd be fortunate enough for all our kids to have their own rooms. We are so thankful to have room to walk around and not shimmy around the furniture. It's nice just to have space.

But for us, it is just another home on the way to our eternal home, heaven. That's the one that matters.

Let me know if you'd like five words specially picked just for you!