I grew up with a mother who loved when we were out of school. You know how lots of parents are just dying for school to start up again at the end of the summer? Well, that was not my mother. She was always so sad when we had to go back to school…and in hindsight, now watching my friends who are mothers, maybe my mom was just acting, but I don’t think so.

Our summers were filled with swimming (both for fun and for sport) and riding bikes and camping, etc. My mom was always getting us involved in activities and she was often right there with us, as our camp lifeguard or an assistant swim coach. Sometimes this created problems (I was great at being her kid, not so great at being her player on various teams), but most of the time it was just amazing.

So, today, I want to share with you my love of vacation days. Not specifically holidays…I mean, really, who gets super excited about Presidents’ Day festivities? (other than maybe sales?) But just time off. Especially time off when other people have the day off, too. In fact, when I started working as an esthetician I thought it was going to be so great to have this flexible schedule; a schedule that allowed me to work when I wanted to. Then I discovered that the best days to work–the days when I would make the biggest commissions–were those holidays when everyone had work off. I hated it. I mean, I loved my job and the money was great, but I hated having to work when everyone else was playing. It was honestly part of why I wanted to join corporate America–no joke.

Feb. 15 – I love vacation days!

I’m not sure how many of you out there are familiar with the book, The Five Love Languages. I have never actually read it, but I’ve had lots and lots of discussions with people who have and find the concepts very interesting. They seem to make sense. The idea is that we all have a dominant love language, and as the name of the book suggests, there are essentially five: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, or physical touch.

Today is my only living grandparent’s 85th birthday. (Shout out to my Grandma!!!) And it got me thinking, “What would a month of love be without mentioning family?”…unless, of course, I didn’t actually love them. But I do. I have an awesome family. Now, anyone who knows me knows that we have issues. We are no where near perfect–we couldn’t even give off the illusion if we wanted to. Just between my siblings and me we have a lot of personality differences, and then you throw in the spouses and things can get a little bit crazy. We get in fights. We disagree. We hurt feelings and get our feelings hurt. Don’t we sound so fun?!

Here’s the thing, though. We love unconditionally. Sure, we don’t always love being around each other. If you know me and how opinionated I am, just multiply that times eight and you know what it’s like at my family gatherings. The beauty of that is, we all know we’re going to speak our minds (we do try and at least be nice about how we share our opinions…for the most part). However, that’s not what makes my family so great…or at least not all of it.

What makes my so happy to be part of my family is that I know that every member is going to be there when I need them. Whether it’s a phone call, a question about drug interactions, advice on which job to take, help moving, or simply a listening ear. We are all very, very busy people, but we make the effort to show that we love each other.

As a kid, I can remember wishing that I was part of a different family (my childhood was less than ideal), but somewhere along the way, or perhaps because of all of the stuff we had to deal with, my family became not just people I was stuck with, but people I would choose to be with, even if I didn’t have to be with them. (And even if that wasn’t the case, I’m sure I’d figure out a way to manage because I’d never give up my darling nieces and nephews. Ha ha ha.)

Feb. 13 – I love my family!

Today, I went and saw Valentine’s Day with Sarah, Cherity (my sister-in-law), Rebecca, and one of Rebecca’s friends. It was an eclectic little group (different friends from different parts of my life), but it was so fun. I love that I’m friends with my sister-in-law. It has been so fun having them live up here this year. She is one of my favorite people.

I was talking to Rebecca the other day about sometimes I struggle a little bit with having different groups of friends in different parts of my life because I don’t always know how to combine them and I love them all. And there are some of them that I see so infrequently that I want to just spend time with that one individual and vice versa.

So here’s the conclusion I’ve come to…my really good girlfriends are the types of friends who get that. I’ve never been the type who feels like I need to be invited to everything everyone has because I totally understand how it goes. It’s not that I don’t love every one of my girlfriends, but good relationships aren’t built when there are 10 people at every gathering you ever have. And I think that’s the beauty of getting older and building lifelong friendships. I have stopped feeling insecure about my relationships with people and it’s fantastic.

Feb. 12 – I love my girlfriends!

Here’s the thing. When you are a woman who has struggled with weight your entire life, there’s something even more satisfying/gratifying/validating about shoes. And being that I do have legs I like, shoes are one of those things that can really accentuate this part of me. As such, I have a sickening number of pairs of shoes. I mean, like mental institution sick. Now, if I were a celebrity and made of money, maybe it wouldn’t be sick. But I’m not. Nor do I have a celebrity income.