Back on the blog after a couple of very busy weeks. I did manage to sign up for this year's April A-Z blog challenge, at the eleventh hour but still, I'm in. I'm not going to be too hard on myself if I fall behind, miss a day and need to combine letters, or run past the last day of the month. I know I'll reach letter Z at some point, just maybe not in April.
Except May is also very busy so I am aiming for April.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about the A-Z challenge is pretty simple. You blog every day of the week except Sundays in the month of April. Yes I know today is Sunday, but I'm just coming up for air here which means I'm already starting off behind. Like I said... I'll get there.
When you take Sundays out of the equation in the month of April you're left with 26 days of posting, one for every letter of the alphabet. Your posts can be themed or not and mine are generally very loosely themed. I have been participating every April since 2011 and enjoy the process.
I can't do deep and heavy right now so I'm going with something fun. Although sometimes my blog has a way of going places I didn't anticipate so I guess anything is possible.
26 things to be exact.
Here we go-
Day 1-A is for America
America is a bit of a mess these days, isn't she? Originally I thought I might write 26 posts on this word alone, but that feels too hard at the moment so I'll keep it to one letter. Probably.
I love America. I've lived away from America and I have traveled to many many places around the globe, but America is home. I view the wider world from the lens of this country, for better or worse and honestly it's almost always a bit of both.
America is not a perfect place, but it is a good place to call home. One of the best in fact, yet it seems lately we're determined to hyper focus our lens on all her imperfections and only her imperfections. Do they exist? Of course! We could make a list right now of all that's wrong with this country, but let' s not. Let's focus the camera for just one minute on what's good and right and hopeful.
What do I love about America?
I love her can-do spirit.
I love her wide open spaces and her too noisy cities. I love her diversity of thought, experience, culture, food, and climate. I love her music, college football, and small town USA.
I love her many freedoms and the men and women who fight to preserve them.
I love her natural beauty and her volunteerism. Her history and her modernity. Her compassion and her fortitude. Her southern drawl, New England clam chowder, purple mountains majesty and the way the sun sinks into the Gulf on a warm July night.
I love her optimism. It may be harder to find these days, but step away from the angry rhetoric filling our screens and our news feeds and sometimes even our neighborhoods, and you'll find the extraordinary. Everyday people working hard, loving their families, helping their neighbors, and praying God's blessings on this nation we call home.
