The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are forever engrained into our hearts. We will never forget the horrific images of the airplanes careening into the Twin Towers. Or hearing the telephone messages of passengers calling their family members and telling them what was happening and they weren’t going to make it out alive. Or listening to someone talk about their loved one who died fighting in the war of terror that ensued after the fact.
September 11th invokes a wide range of emotions. My heart aches for those who lost their loved ones on that day or in the war. But at the same time, it is a day of much joy and happiness. You see, while today marks twenty years since the terrorist attacks, it also marks twenty-two years that JT and I walked down the aisle and became husband and wife.
The highs of knowing that my life has been forever changed by the most wonderful woman in the world, remembering the beautiful ceremony, eating wonderful food, and sharing great memories with friends and family at our wedding. To the lows of know that just two years later, life as we knew it had changed, terrorism was a real threat, and so many people died in the name of preserving the American freedom that we have lived in.
Now twenty years since that horrific day, I find that I have changed. In the years past, while I felt a deep sadness about what happened that day, I still wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I found myself saying, “We were married before this happened, so I am going to celebrate.” But this year, it was different. I could only post things related to the terrorist attacks and the war on terror on my social media. I wanted to post photos of my wife as a countdown to our anniversary, but my heart told me NO. It wasn’t right. Maybe it has to do with the end of the war in Afghanistan and the recent loss of the thirteen soldiers in Afghanistan. Maybe it is the heartache for the people who died on that day truly hit me.
The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the war that followed became so real to me today. After eating lunch at Red Lobster for our anniversary, we went to see the Flags of Valor presentation. Over seven thousand United States flags are placed on Art Hill in Forest Park in Saint Louis, MO. Each flag includes a photograph of a soldier who died fighting in the War on Terror, along with a replica dog tag that gives their name, date of death, and where they died. There are also flags honoring the first responders, police officers, and firefighters who died while helping the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A panel display includes photographs of each of the people who died on September 11th. Fox News captured this video shows the magnitude of the presentation.
Seeing more than seven thousand flags, each with a photograph and a dog tag of a man or woman who sacrificed their lives so that I can continue to live in freedom. So that terror would not prevail, and that evil has no place in this world. All I can say is, “Thank You!” And we all must say, “We Will Never Forget!:
A flag honoring Vincent G. Danz, New York Police Officer who died at the World Trade Center during the September 11th Terrorist Attacks
Happy Wedding Anniversary to my sweet husband. I feel like we just got married, and now it is 22 years. You love me despite all my flaws. I wonder why did you marry me. I thought I would never get married because I wasn’t shown, good role models. I realized that God is first before everything, and through him, he gave me you. God is good, and I thank him for his grace and mercy.
1 Corinthians 13;4-5 says,
Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
NIV: New International Version
Marriage is work, and anyone that tells you it’s not is lying to you.
If you are married, there are two steps you can take to freshen your marriage each day.
1. Put God first: Jay and I know that nothing works without God In Jesus Name, so our spiritual life is a priority. Did this happen? No, we made it a priority, and if one of us slips us, we make sure we check each other. A good bible study together is the BibleRecap with Tara Lee Cobble on Youversion Bible app.
2. Communicate: spend time together each day and talk. Life, kids, fur babies, and everything else that encompasses your day can take priority but make sure you both are spending time talking not just about the day but about each other. The time can be as little as 15 minutes, but there’s no set time. Just make it happen.
3. Be each other’s cheerleader: As a husband and wife, there’s no 50/50. It’s 100/100. You both have to go all-in with the relationship.
I am not a marriage expert, and again it seems like we just got married yesterday. However, I can tell you from 22 years of marriage experience that these tips are still part of our communication with each and our love language continues to grow when we do the work.
Honey, I love you, you are my best friend, Happy 22 years!
Whether your kids are still young or grown up and have youngsters of their own, it’s always good to spend time together as a family. While day-to-day life can make it tricky to spend as much quality time together as you’d like, finding ways to bond can strengthen your relationships. To keep things exciting and find new ways to enjoy each other’s company, why not try these five fun ways to bond as a family?
Go Hiking A hiking trip can be a great way to have fun together, particularly if you turn it into a multi-day event and camp overnight. With essential supplies, a range of treats, andcustom printed t shirts to ensure everyone is easily identifiable, family members of all ages can take part and enjoy themselves. Be sure to choose a suitable trail for everyone and make sure you’re prepared for the terrain. As you enhance your skills, however, you’ll be able to take on more adventurous routes as a family.
Cook Together Sitting down to an evening meal together for many families is an important way of connecting, but cooking together can be even better. Even if some family members aren’t budding chefs, you can have fun learning new skills and sharing the responsibilities of preparing a meal! Whether you’re throwing together a quick weekday meal or prepping for a family BBQ, encouraging everyone to get involved is a fun way to spend time together.
Try an Assault Course If you want to test your limits, book a day at an activity center and take on an assault course as a team. While very young children won’t be able to participate in this one, there are many outdoor activity centers geared towards youngsters. By finding the right course for your family, you can work together, enjoy some friendly competition and have hours of fun.
Have a Gaming Session If your kids are into gaming, trying to cajole them away from their screens can be a challenge but, if you can’t beat them, join them! Ask your kids to teach you how to game, and you’ll have a shared hobby that you can partake in at any time. What’s more – playing games online is a great way to connect with family members who are based elsewhere, so you can stay in touch with siblings, cousins, and kids and have fun at the same time.
Sing Karaoke Nothing lifts your mood like belting out your favorite tune, which is why karaoke is so popular with people of all ages. Rent a karaoke machine, buy a couple of microphones or book a session at a nearby karaoke booth and you can sing your heart out. Encourage everyone to create a list of their favorite songs, and you can create your own bespoke playlist!
Making Time for Family Fun When you have an endless to-do list, it’s always a challenge to fit family time into your schedule. However, making it a top priority regularly will benefit everyone. Having fun together strengthens bonds and makes you feel closer to your nearest and dearest. By choosing easily accessible and fun activities for everyone, family time will become a firm favorite in your household!
Regardless of your income, it is important to be aware and potentially be prepared for the future financial challenges that you might face several years down the line. By understanding the dangers here, you can make sure that you avoid issues like unmanageable debt levels and, ultimately, keep your financial situation healthy. This is going to benefit you and the rest of your family. So, let’s explore some of the steps that you can take to ensure that you are protected from tomorrow’s financial challenges.
Understand Insurance First, you need to make sure that you understand the insurance industry and benefit you personally. If you are aware of the latest insurance trends, you will know the type of coverage that you should be thinking about investing in. An example would almost certainly be disability insurance. Research shows that you are more likely than not to develop a disability or long-term injury before 65. This could impact your ability to earn, and as such, it does make sense to invest in disability insurance.
Purchasing Real Estate Next, you need to make sure that you are purchasing real estate as soon as possible. Real estate allows you to skirt around the issue of dead money. The problem with dead money is that it means that you are not getting anything out of renting a property in the long term. As such, you need to make sure that you do think about buying instead. You might think that buying a home is always going to be beyond your budget. However, this is not the case, and it’s just a matter of putting the right money away each year until you have enough for a deposit.
Invest As well as investing in real estate, you also need to make sure that you think about diversifying your investment decisions as much as possible. There are many different investment options that you can explore which could be beneficial to you. For instance, you might want to look at the cryptocurrency market. Many experts maintain that crypto is the future of finance. So, it does make sense to at least consider this possibility. Remember, Bitcoin isn’t the only crypto that might be worth exploring on the market.
A Second Income Finally, regardless of how much you are earning on the market, experts recommend that you have a second income that you can fall back on. The right secondary income will provide the additional cushion of cash that you need. It will mean that you can easily cover the cost of unexpected bills that would otherwise weigh you down.
We hope this helps you understand everything you need to think about to guarantee that you are protected from financial challenges you could run into several years from now. If you take the right steps here, you will guarantee that you are in a far better position and can adapt quickly to changes and challenges.
The key to gaining confidence in how you look is all wrapped up in taking care of yourself. With a positive mindset and a goal to put your best self out there, you can gain and maintain confidence in no time! If you’re feeling insecure about your looks, check out these four ideas to boost your confidence and maintain the glow that you already have within you.
Groom Yourself One of the best ways that you can refresh yourself is through grooming. While grooming, you can do the bare minimum of showering, shaving, and moisturizing. Or you can pamper yourself with a self-care routine. Here are a few examples of some self-care activities:
– Take a bath – Paint your nails – Throw on a beauty mask – Exfoliate your skin – Moisturize your lips – Play around with makeup – Do a hair treatment
Engage in Exercise Exercising is a great way to gain confidence. You can create health goals, strengthen your body, and try out new routines to give yourself more energy. When you exercise, you are prioritizing your health and your body. Exercising also gives you a goal to work towards and motivation to better your overall health. You can start with a simple routine or create a workout calendar with designated health goals if you’re a beginner. One of the best parts of jumping into an exercise routine is that you can choose one that best suits you.
If you want to be more flexible, you can do yoga, or if you want to build stamina, you can start including a run in your weekly schedule. Whatever you choose to do, remember that you’re doing it to make yourself feel better. Go with an exercise routine that’s fun.
Here’s a beginning workout video:
Take Care of Your Smile Smiling is a great way to build your confidence and show everyone around you that you have command of the room. When you smile, you want to feel strong and good about yourself. That’s exactly why taking care of your teeth is extremely important. Give some love to your teeth by visiting the dentist, brushing and flossing your teeth, and rinsing your mouth with mouthwash. Nothing screams confidence more than a nice smile! You can add this to your self-care routine and call it a day.
Dress For Yourself Everyone’s heard the phrase, “dress for success.” But what if you started dressing to impress yourself? Clothes and fashion play a powerful role in expression and identity. You can try new styles out and see what look fits your personality the best. When you take the time to wear clothes that make you feel good, you nurture your confidence and self-esteem. At the end of the day, do what makes you feel good, and your self-love will follow.
When it comes to gaining confidence, you can practice self-care, dress up, exercise, and take care of your smile. Once you set out on a journey of self-love, you will be able to gain the confidence that you’ve always wanted.
I want to take this opportunity to wish all of the fathers a very Happy Father’s Day. I’m not going to lie. For me, this day is tough. My father passed away when I was twelve. To be honest, I use to hate it. Having to ‘celebrate’ it without him was tough, especially when I would see other people’s fathers were still alive. What made it even harder is that my father’s birthday is June 13th, usually just days before Father’s Day. As time went on, I was able to turn my grief into joy. And today, I can take what was a sad day and still celebrate Father’s Day even though my own father is in Heaven.
Jay with his father
I know that many people who have lost their fathers will spend the day at the cemetery. For me, this is a big NO. I have done that in the past, and I felt more depressed and sad when I left. I refuse to go to a cemetery unless I am there for an actual funeral. For me, a cemetery does not bring me good feelings for my father. It just reminds me that he is gone and not with me in the physical world. And I am surrounded by the reminder that family members and other people are no longer with us. There is something about a tombstone that doesn’t bring me peace. So that is why I am not going to a cemetery unless it is to honor a family member or friend who recently passed.
When I am in a cemetery, it makes me focus on my father’s death. The last six weeks of his life were extremely hard for him. He lost his battle with lung cancer. I don’t want want to focus on that or how he struggled to live. I want to focus on his life and how he lived it. I want to focus on what he meant to me, my mother, my family, and the people he knew. Although he walked on this earth for only 54 years, he greatly impacted the people who knew him.
I want to remember him as the man who started a construction company with only an eighth-grade education. I want to remember the man who provided for this family, for his employees, and the partners even when he struggled through the tough times in business. Finally, I want to remember the man who told my mother that he wanted just one more child, which is why I am here today.
On Father’s Day, It is easy to think about the times that I lost out with him not being there. The first shave, my graduation ceremonies, my wedding, or the father-son talks that he missed out on. But I focus my mind on thinking about the good memories that I have of my daddy. I would spend time traveling to the construction sites; when he would give me a paycheck for helping him on the job or watching him build things in his woodworking shop. I had to train myself to focus on the good memories and to cast aside the bad memories. I had to work hard to focus on how he lived his life and not think about how his life ended. As the years went by, it became easier for my mind to stay focused on the good times. And now when I think about him, or his birthday or Father’s Day,
On this Father’s Day, I want to honor and thank my father. He is the reason I am here and why I am the man I am today. Even though his death has separated us in the natural for almost thirty-four years, I will always have him close in my heart.
Thank You, Daddy!
I Love You!
If your father is in Heaven, how do you remember him on this day?
Learn More About JT Bubbling with Elegance and Grace is a place for life long learners. The Bubbling With Elegance And Grace team was created 14 years ago. A passion for fashion sparked a lifestyle blog for our Elegant Community to enjoy. We are thankful and in gratitude to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for those who have been with us from the beginning and those who have just started riding with us on this lovely journey.
Happy Wedding Anniversary to my sweet husband. I feel like we just got married, and now it is 22 years. You love me despite all my flaws. I wonder why did you marry me. I thought I would never get married because I wasn’t shown, good role models. I realized that God is first before everything, and through him, he gave me you. God is good, and I thank him for his grace and mercy.
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