Dear Me and Things to be Greatful For,

Great weather for one.  Fall is beautiful in that you get to experience crisp cool clean mornings and comfortable afternoons, making it okay to wear long sleeves but not at all uncomfortable to wear short sleeves.  

A day out with Mom.  A car ride complete with sharing stories plenty of laughing and singing completely off key is more than enough to make me happy.  On top of that we're sharing the experience of seeing Swan Lake, a first for both of us.  Its moment like those that will remain a cherished memory forever.
Friends who make me smile. I am a firm believer that we are not meant to survive this life alone, and with friends like these I'm forever grateful that's true! I can always count on them to make me smile and some how bring sunshine to my day. 
 When your mind's not off thinking about the next step and the next plan and the next accomplishment, you get the chance to truly savor the good in life.  I hope you always remember that. I hope that, in  your life to come, you never get too caught up in pressing towards the future, or too lost in reminiscing about the past.  The beauty in life is about the here and now.  And what a beautiful life it is!
Love,

~Bella

Dear Me and the Changing Times,

Do you remember these old fads?

Kids used to carry around Pencil boxes FULL of these.  The more you had the cooler you were.  They came in the strangest colors, a lot of them not even readable unless you were writing on black paper.  Not only that but if you didn't wait long enough they'd smear all over the page.  Even still, I will always think of the thrill passing secret notes and the fun of writing in year books with as many different colors as you could when I think of these.  

Or these? I wanted a pair of these so bad in elementary school!

Patented by Rodger Adams in 2000 (says wikipedia), all you had to do with Heelys was shift your weight and you'd go from walking to gliding.  The coolest thing to see was some boy running across the playground and then all of a sudden break into a glide. Of course these shoes came with the inevitable injuries.  But then again, so did skateboarding and basketball. 

I did get to enjoy being a part of this fad though, and even now I see them around occasionally and I smile to myself:

Little did I know that they were Italian Charm Bracelets! It wasn't till the 1990's when a tourist saw them and brought this fad to America (again, information found on wikipedia) and I don't think they even became a fad until about 2000.  The great part was they were all unique, each charm put on there said something about who you were.  Then, It went from sparkly silver charm braclets to this, only years later:

 For 5 bucks you could buy about 24 rubber, silly shaped, bands that fit on your wrists like squiggly noodles.  Once you took them off they'd go back to their original shape whether that was a letter, or a unicorn or even Justin Beiber's face (another fad we're still suffering through...). This particular fad started in 2008 and since then "The Silly Bandz Facebook page now has nearly 255,000 fans, and on YouTube, some 2,000 videos have been posted about the bracelets, including a rap song that has been played almost 24,000 times" notes an article by Susan Barfield, writer for Bloomberg BuisnessWeek. 

The Silly Bandz hit my youngest sister's age group more than mine, but talking to her about it brought up so many memories of my own.  What other crazy fads are out there that I cant remember? What new ones are waiting down the road? I will say this though- trying to keep up with all the newest and greatest things can get overwhelming, so remember, as with everything else, just take it one day at a time.

All My Love, 

Bella '

Dear Me...

A friend asked me once to write A Letter To Me, or the me that would be twenty years down the road.  This letter, he said, should be about whats important to you now, what life is like, the things you hope to remember, your dreams as they are now...
After writing it, I decided that one letter wasn't enough to encompass all the things in life now that would be interesting to look back on later.  So here I am, again, writing to you, but this time it will be an on going letter.  A letter to ensure that you always remember and never forget what it means to be in this stage of life. 

So the motto of these letters? One day at a time.  Because if nothing else, that is one thing I hope you always remember.

-Bella