250 Candles on America’s Birthday Cake

This year, America turns 250 years old. Two hundred and fifty. That number is hard to wrap my head around when I stop and think about it. Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of people signed a document and declared that they wanted something different. They wanted the freedom to make their own choices, govern themselves, and build a future that belonged to them.

Were they perfect? Of course not. Has America always gotten everything right? Not even close. But what amazes me is that through wars, depressions, disagreements, disasters, victories, and generations of change, this country is still here.

Think about all the people who came before us. Farmers. Teachers. Soldiers. Factory workers. Parents. Grandparents. People who built homes, raised families, started businesses, and simply tried to make life a little better for the people who came after them.  Most of them will never appear in a history book. Yet they helped build the country we live in today. 

When I think about America’s 250th birthday, I don’t just think about fireworks and parades. I think about all those ordinary people who quietly did their part. The ones who worked hard, paid their bills, raised decent kids, helped their neighbors, and left things a little better than they found them. That’s the real story of America. Not just the famous names. The rest of us too. People like our parents and grandparents. People like us.

Two hundred and Fifty is a long time. Entire nations have risen and fallen during that span. Yet here we are, still arguing, still growing, still stumbling sometimes, but still moving forward. Maybe that’s the lesson of America. We don’t have to agree on everything to love our country. We don’t have to be perfect to be proud.  And we don’t have to forget our history to celebrate how far we’ve come.

So when America blows out 250 candles, I hope we take a moment to appreciate what an incredible milestone it is. Not because we’re perfect....But because we’re still here.

And that’s worth celebrating.

When the Couch, A/C, and TV Align Just Right

I had the BEST nap today. Seriously… maybe the best nap I have had since moving to Yukon 16 years ago!

Not one of those naps where you wake up confused, sweating, and wondering if it’s tomorrow. This was the perfect nap. The couch hit just right. The pillow was perfect. The A/C was at that magical temperature. The TV was playing just loud enough that dreaming slightly  about what your hearing… but also drifting off into the best sleep of your life.

It was nap perfection.

The only problem is this makes two days in a row I have napped my afternoons away. Apparently my body has discovered this new feature called “relaxing” and I’m not sure what to do with that information.

And here I am typing this at 3:00 in the morning.

But before anyone blames the nap… nope! I’m actually tired. This one is on Kelsey, the woman rowing across the Atlantic. I have followed this journey, so obviously I had to stay awake and watch her come into port. You can’t watch someone row across an entire ocean and then miss the finish line because it’s past your bedtime.

So now I’m heading to bed hoping tonight’s sleep is half as good as that perfect couch, cold room, TV-in-the-background nap.

Because apparently retirement comes with a new hobby… accidentally becoming a professional napper.

I Came For Toilet Paper

I really don’t think I am that hard to get along with. I smile at people. I hold doors open. I donate to causes I care about. I’ll even listen to a kid tell me all about a video game I don’t understand for twenty minutes straight. What I do not enjoy is running the gauntlet every time I go to Walmart.

I came for toilet paper and dog food. That’s it. I did not come to switch my internet provider, buy discount windows, donate to three different fundraisers, enter a raffle, sponsor a softball team, or discuss my cell phone plan with a complete stranger standing between me and a shopping cart.

The minute you get out of your car, they’re waiting. Sure, you can deploy the classic avoidance tactics. Believe me, I've tried them all—scrolling pointlessly through a blank phone screen, or frantically digging around in my purse like I've suddenly misplaced my life savings. You can even pull the ultimate maneuver: aggressively pointing at your earbuds with a painfully awkward shrug to signal that you are deaf to the world. But let's be honest, it never works. They completely ignore your desperate, universal signs of "please leave me alone" and just keep right on talking anyway.

One person wants a donation. Another wants a signature. A third wants to save you money on something you never planned to buy in the first place.

Cue the awkward shuffle.

"No, thank you."
"I'm good, thanks."
"Not today!"

You paste on a tight smile, pick up your pace, and avoid eye contact at all costs. It’s basically speed dating for things I don’t want. The worst part is, they hit you going in, and they hit you coming out.

Look, I get it. People are trying to raise money, but honestly? If I wanted what they were selling, I’d go looking for it.

I miss the days when the hardest part of shopping was figuring out which aisle they moved the dog food to. Now, I need the reflexes of a ninja and the emotional detachment of a hostage negotiator just to breach the front doors. Stop it!

If these stores really want to improve my shopping experience, they can start by letting me get from my car to the toilet paper isle without a work out!

What Actually Matters

I was thinking today about something people ask from time to time… what’s it like having a gay son?

My answer is always the same.

It’s like having a son.

Seriously, that’s it.

People act like it’s some completely different parenting experience, but it really isn’t. He’s funny, smart, brutally honest, and one of my favorite people to shop with because he actually has style. He’ll tell me if something looks terrible without sugarcoating it, and I appreciate that more than the sales clerk telling me everything looks “cute.”

I have four children. Three are married to the opposite sex, and one is gay. The truth is, I don’t think about their relationships differently. I don’t sit around defining them by who they love. I define them by who they are.

That’s what matters.

When I meet someone my children love, I don’t have a checklist that starts with sexual orientation. My checklist is much simpler.

Are they kind?

Do they make my child laugh?

Do they show up when life gets hard?

Do they work hard, love well, and treat people with respect?

Are they good to their family? Patient with children? Compassionate toward older people? The kind of person you’d be proud to have around your dinner table?

Those are the things I notice.

Character has always mattered more to me than labels.

Being the mom of a gay son hasn’t changed how I love, worry, celebrate, or cheer for my child. It hasn’t changed what I hope for him either. I want him to find someone who is loyal, kind, dependable, and who makes life better just by being in it.

Because that’s what I want for all four of my children.

At the end of the day, relationships aren’t built on labels. They’re built on character. And character will always matter more than anything else.

Hollywood, Get a Library Card

What Happened to Good Movies?

Maybe I got spoiled. Maybe I’m too picky. Or maybe movies just aren’t that good anymore.

Seriously, what happened?

Back in the 80s, 90s, and even the early 2000s, it felt like every weekend there was a movie you couldn’t wait to see. Comedies were funny. Action movies were exciting. Romantic comedies actually had romance and comedy. Even the dumb movies were somehow entertaining.

Now I spend more time scrolling than I do watching. Everything is a remake, reboot, sequel, prequel, spin-off, or based on a comic book character I’ve never heard of.

And here’s what confuses me. The actors didn’t all quit. The directors are still directing. So what happened?

The only conclusion I can come to is that the writers got tired. Did they run out of ideas? Did somebody lose the giant book of good movie plots? Did Hollywood just decide originality was too much work?

I can remember when a Friday night was an event. We’d grab Chinese food and then head to Family Video. The boys would disappear into the game section while the rest of us wandered the movie aisles. The hardest part wasn’t finding something to watch. It was deciding which movies to leave behind because there were too many good choices. You could spend an hour reading the backs of boxes and still not see everything.

Now I have access to thousands of movies without leaving my couch and somehow can’t find one worth watching. Technology advanced. TVs got bigger. Streaming got faster. Movies got worse. That seems backwards.

And here’s the thing I really don’t understand. There are thousands of amazing books sitting on library shelves that have never been made into movies. Go to the damn library. Walk through the fiction section. Pick a shelf. There are enough stories in there to keep Hollywood busy for the next hundred years.

It’s not like it can’t work. Look at Julia Quinn and the Bridgerton series. Somebody picked up those books and turned them into one of the biggest hits on television. The proof is right there.

I miss the days when a trip to Family Video felt like an adventure and movie night didn’t require forty-five minutes of scrolling followed by disappointment.

So if any movie writers are reading this, please stop remaking movies that were already good. Write something new. Or at least get a library card.

Because if I have to sit through one more reboot of a reboot based on a sequel nobody asked for, I’m going to start believing the most original thing Hollywood has produced lately is the loading screen.