So, I’ve made a lot of hats in my life. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, I learned how to crochet beanies. And I gave her some and I donated a bunch to people who lost their hair because of the chemo. I did that for a little while. And then my mom's hair grew back and I stopped making hats. And then, I stopped doing any sort of -- I didn't really do any crochet for years and years and years and years and years.  And, fast forward to must have been 2021, I learned how to knit. And one of the first things that I made, when I learned how to knit was a beanie, and then I remembered that I had made beanies crocheting. And I had no idea how to crochet at the time, but I started making hats, knitting them. And one of my favorite books that I got was -- or is called “Knitting the National Parks” so, there are 30 -- no -- 63. This is my dyslexia coming in through right there, 63 patterns. One for each of the national parks. And they're very cool hats like really, really cool hats. So I went through and I picked out some that I liked and I gave it -- the book to my sister, or she got it from her library, and she picked out some that she wanted and her husband picked out one that he wanted and I've given some to friends and I’ve donated some and have made lots and lots of these “Knitting the National Parks” hats.

So actually, funny story. Last week, I went to go get the car and per usual like our apartment doesn't have like a good place to park your car. So we usually just like keep it idle behind the -- or in front of our apartment doors. Um but last week, unfortunately, little to my knowledge was the big MSU vs U of M basketball game. And so everyone was trying to like be on our street and the parking police were like out on a craze. And of course, right when I need to start moving again, the car didn't start. So, I had to go up to the apartment to get like our jumper. And by the time I got back downstairs to the car, we had a ticket on the car. And this is really stupid, like I really hate East Lansing for this because MSU is like the perfect place. We're right in between the MSU parking police wrath and then also the wrath of the East Lansing parking police. So we get like double whammied with the amount of parking tickets that I get. And I have like an employee permit. So, it's not like I'm just visiting and trying to get out of like paying the parking ticket. Like I paid over $200 for this parking pass that's supposed to get me into like a bunch of different parking lots and yet I still get ticketed by both parking police. Like it's just absolutely horrible. I feel very devalued as like an employee and student of MSU. And I just feel like in those cases, the basketball games, or like just the games in general at MSU, have more value over me as an employee here, which is kind of sad.

My son's obsessed with hats. He only pretty much wants hats now for presents. Well, that and a few other things, but he has like a hundred hats, and he wears a different hat every day. And today, he -- today, he wore the weirdest hat that he has. And I really wonder what they said at school. He's in eighth grade, and he has this shirt that has a picture of a man -- a corn on the cob man. Like, and it says, "I am corn man", or no "I am corn on the cob man" or something, I'm not sure what it says. And so he was wearing that shirt and but then he also has this hat that is like a corn -- corn, the top of a cob of corn, like in the field, and it's got the leaves on it that kind of flop out, kind of like big ears. Or the leaves, the shucks, whatever they're called. And then there's like, actual straw, or hay like sticking out of the top of the corn, and it's a hat and it -- and he, it's like, you know, yellow and green with like pieces of straw sticking out of the top. So it looks like he has corn on the cob on his head.  And he wore that to school. Um, yeah. And he also has a broccoli hat that he's going to be wearing soon. He like just really likes to wear crazy looking hats and then everybody thinks he's a big weirdo, and -- but they also think he's kind of cool and so, I think whatever he wants to do is fine with me. I like that he's embracing his weirdness and not ashamed or afraid or self-conscious at all. I think that's great.

When I was a little girl, my parents took us to the beach quite frequently. It was a freebie and we would go in, and into the parks and go to the beaches. There was this one, it said no swimming because of the undertow and I got in it. I had to be four or five years old, old enough not to be able to read the sign and I got into the water and I got pulled into under the undertow. Thank God my brother was there to see me. He was two years older than me so he had to be nine. If I was seven, if I was five, he was seven. And he could swim and he swam out to get me and he got caught in the undertow but he was a strong enough swimmer, he swam out of it with me in tow. Ugh, talk about scary, I thought I was gonna drown that day and my parents were on the edge of the beach waving and clapping their hands and encouraging [my brother] to keep going, and he got me out of there. 

I sit down at the end of the table and was eating my lunch and I glanced up and there was a window just on the other end of the table. There’s a window and outside the window is a maple tree that this time of year, of course, is completely devoid of leaves. It's just a kind of gray, bare branches. But when I glanced up, my heart almost stopped. It was, it was an entire flock of cardinals in that tree. And it was like, “that is amazing!” It was so beautiful. The red was so astoundingly beautiful, the sun was shining on them and the snow in the background and it looked like the tree had been decked out in the brightest red ornaments you could find, and the thought popped into my head that somebody just said to me this last week, they said, “When you see a cardinal, somebody you love is near you.” And so, here I had a whole, I was like, I have my whole family was out in that tree. So, that was just a little something I wanted to share that how God gives us those moments to cheer us and to let us know that we're not alone.