Love Challenge: LAST DAY!

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? ~Albert Einstein

Love Challenge Continued: Day Nineteen

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

~Albert Einstein

Love Continued: Day eighteen

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much a heart can hold.

~Zelda Fitzgerald

Love Challenge: Continued (Day 17)

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

~Ingrid Bergman

February Love List: Continued

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

~William Shakespeare "Romeo and Juliet"

I love spending time with my family. There is nothing better than an evening spent in our family room together with a movie and an enormous bowl of popcorn.

Love Challenge: Continued

Just a reminder, I've decided to continue this challenge for a little while. I may not post every day, but will try as often as I can. I'm so enjoying this, that fourteen days wasn't enough.

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

~Willa Cather

Love Challenge: Valentine's Day

Love is like a campfire: It may be sparked quickly, and at first the kindling throws out a lot of heat, but it burns out quickly. For long lasting, steady warmth (with delightful bursts of intense heat from time to time), you must carefully tend the fire.

~ Molleen Matsumura

I was all set to write a long blog today. After all, it's Valentines Day, a day set specifically aside for declarations of love. And I could. I really could write lists and lists of all the things and all the people I love. And if I took the time, I could probably write something that would make people cry. But here's the truth. Even for a writer, there are some things words can't express.

Words can't express how my kids carry the jar that holds my last breath. Or how my husband is not only my sturdy oak, but also the soil, water and sunshine.

And my family--in all their various personalities, beliefs, and circumstances--is a parachute that always opens.

Or my friends who are like the milk in my cereal because I could probably live without them, but my life is so much better with them in it.

And all the people who have walked in and out of my life and helped make me into the person I am. Who have inspired me and supported me and loved me--even when I didn't deserve their love.

No, words can't express the way I feel. Not today. But I love them all anyway. They're characters in the story of my life.

And so I dedicate it to them.

With all of that, how can I not believe in happy endings?

Love Challenge: Day 13

We need not think alike to love alike. ~ Francis David

I love love. I believe it is impossible to love two people in the exact same way. What a wonderful phenomenon! And I love that we have the freedom to love as many people as we want. Love is a gift, and we can give it away as freely as we choose.

Love Challenge: Day 12

Is it so small a thing

To have enjoy'd the sun,

To have lived light in the spring,

To have loved, to have thought, to have done...

~Matthew Arnold

I love LIFE!!! Even on bad days, I get to go to bed knowing that it all starts over in the morning. I breathe in and out, live second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. And even though I may regret some of my actions, I don't ever regret a single minute of living. Life itself is an incredible and precious gift that can be taken from us when least expected. I tuck my kids in bed each night, and never forget to tell them how much I love them...just in case.

Love Challenge: Day 11

I just realized I'm running out of days to post my love quotes and pictures. Four days until Valentines day, and I still have a long list to share. And I'm enjoying myself. Not only am I blogging a little something every day, but also, I'm going through a list of all these fabulous quotes, poems, and graphics each day and...well, I'm just not ready to be finished posting them yet. I keep trying to pick my favorite, and the truth is, I end up posting my favorite of the day on each day that I post. So, as you can see, I don't really have a favorite. I choose which ones to post according to my mood.

So, if it's all right with you (the readers) I'm going to plan on posting as often as I can for the rest of the month--or until I run out of material. (Ha, like that will happen!) Also, if you haven't noticed, my playlist this month is full of some great soft sounding love songs. Give it a listen if you have a minute or an hour.

Now, on to today's quote:

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each others dreams, we can be together all the time. ~Hobbes (of Calvin and Hobbes)

Today I love to dream.

Dreams are the things that make the future exciting.

Love Challenge: Day Ten

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle. ~Amy Bloom

Today I love spring. I can't wait for it to get here!

I Love...So Many Things. Love Blog: Day 8

Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile. ~Franklin P. Jones

By Nichole Giles

Since today is Sunday, and my crazy week has finally wound to a close, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on a few of the things I’ve mentioned in my recent blog entries. For several days I’ve wanted to write something meaningful, thoughtful, and true. Things I love and that really matter to me.

On Sunday, I mentioned loving sunshine. Sunshine to me is as important as breathing air or drinking water when walking in a desert. I love the feeling of the warmth on my skin, the light through my eyelids, and the natural vitamin B pumping into my blood. There is no substitution, no better feeling than being outside on a sunny day.

I also talked about how much I love snuggles from my kids. I don’t know about you other parents, but there is no better salve for a bruise, no better solution to stitch a broken heart, and no more satisfying solution to the things that go wrong in life—and in the world—than a snuggle from one of my sweet, loving children. For the past several years, it has become a nightly tradition that my youngest son and I snuggle up on my bed together for at least twenty minutes. Neither of us sleeps well if we forget or are unable to have our nightly snuggle. And snuggles aren’t just good for healing what ails you. It’s also a great way to celebrate things that go right and wonderful in life and the world as well. It’s one of the best parts of life. My kids are growing—in fact, my oldest is bigger than me by about half a foot—but the fact that they’re too big for me to pick up and hold in my arms, doesn’t mean I need their snuggles any less. On the contrary. I need them more every single day.

I love the ability to help others because by helping them, I remember to be grateful that I can. There have been times in the past when I’ve needed help, and whatever was needed has been available from the willing service of others. I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to be able to return the favor, to give of my time and abilities to assist someone else. I am a better person when others allow me to serve them.

My loving wonderful friends are a great source of love for me. I am so, so blessed with a number of wonderful, loving friends all of whom hold a special place in my heart. There are a handful of women I spend a lot of time with, for whom I would do anything, and I trust with my whole heart that they would do anything for me. Friends like that are a rare and special gift from God. Besides them, I have so many writing friends who go out of their way to help me improve and learn, and with whom I share a common bond. I don’t know where I’d be without them. And other friends, in so many capacities, with so many different purposes in my life. I love you all, and thank you.

Freedom and the ability to choose what I believe, is something else for which I’m amazingly grateful, and something I love every day. This one word affects what I wear, how and where I live, and all the other choices those in other circumstances aren’t allowed to make. I get to choose my own life and my destiny. Whatever problems we have in our country, I’m absolutely grateful to live here. I’m proud to be an American.

And then there is my wonderful, loving, sweet, kind, amazing husband who loves me, despite my faults, mood swings, and mistakes. He loves me and never questions the amount of time I spend writing, the lack of time I spend cleaning house or cooking, and my need to spend time with the friends mentioned in the above paragraph. He worries about my needs, my feelings, and my desires, and encourages me to learn how to fly—even though he knows I’ll first have to figure out how to build my own wings. He is the center of my universe, and I am his. I love him with my whole soul.

Yesterday, I was reminded that I love technology. Because frankly, my writing process would take five times as long without it. Also, my laptop alone has spared the lives of possibly hundreds of trees. Did I mention that my husband—er, uh, I mean Santa—gave me my laptop for Christmas to encourage my writing? Yeah, that’s another reason I love it. (and him.) Now, if only it would lose a little weight for those days when I haul it all over town, I’d love it even more. Cell phones, DVD players, gizmos and gadgets and programs…they all have a place in making my life easier. I love those things.

Today, I love my friend Christine, for spearheading this challenge and by doing so making me take the time to think about all the things I truly love in life.

I love all the writing instructors I’ve had through the years, Carol Lynch Williams, Cheri Pray Earl (who taught the class I took only yesterday,) Dave Wolverton, Martine Leavitt, Claudia Mills, B.J. Rowley, and more members of the LDS Storymakers association than I could possibly name in one blog. Thank you all for your brilliant tutelage. Without you, I would have given up writing a long time ago.

Finally, I love my readers. Because of you, I am motivated to keep writing. Even though I’d write anyway, it’s sure a lot more fun to know someone will actually read my thoughts.




Happy Sunday!

Love Challenge: Day Seven

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of. ~Blaise Pascal

Today, I realized that since my manuscript is 130,000 words long (which is WAY, WAY too long for a young adult book) I'm going to rediscover the love of my computer's cutting and pasting ability. I love technology.

Love List Challenge: Day Six

by Nichole Giles

Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. ~Robert Heinlein

Today I love that my husband tries so hard to understand me, even when I don't always understand myself.

Love List Challenge: Day Five

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.

It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.



~I Corinthians 13:4-8

Today I love my freedom, and the ability I have to make my own choices.

Love List Challenge: Day four

Love is a choice you make from moment to moment. ~Barbara De Angelis

Today I'm grateful for loving friends.

Love Link Challenge: Day Three

A lot of my friends who are taking this challenge have chosen to write more personal things each day. I think that's a wonderful thing to do. But I keep a list of quotes and sayings that I love, and I want to take this opportunity to share these bits of wisdom. Don't worry, though. I'm sure I'll get personal every once in a while!

Quote for today:

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough. ~Ann Landers

Today I love having the ability to help others.

Love List Challenge: Day Two

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. ~Allan K. Chalmers

Today I love: Snuggles from my kids