Good Stuff

Hi Friends,

I hope everyone is doing wonderfully.

I pray you are blessed, humbled and giving back.

Even when times are tough, giving thanks and giving back adds so much positive to the predictable process of life’s ups and downs.

This week I have two positives to share. Not every week is jolly good, of course, but this week is jolly x2:

Sweet baby boy is growing and growing. Mom, Savanna, remains her svelte self but the baby boy gets bigger every time I see her.

Prediction: Charlie Garde will be a big boy! If not “big” immediately upon birth…one day…baby boy will be a big boy.

Here’s a recent image of my first grandson:

Can you tell I’m an excited grandma-to-be? Trying to tone down the exuberance isn’t easy. Truth always wins in my book and the truth is: I’m stinking excited.

Jeff is also thrilled! Golf, hockey, baseball, cars, and Georgia Tech are for-sure intros for the little guy.

We hear over and over about how much we are going to enjoy being grandparents. Before Savanna and Joe were expecting I didn’t really get how much joy a grandchild could bring. It’s like having a baby all over again, but from a distance. An indulgence distance, if you will.

Our pastor, Michael Youssef, has a quote that I keep in our house:

“If We Can Explain It, God Did Not Do It”

That quote sums up my excitement about Charlie. God is doing it thus I can’t explain it.

Now, on to daughter #2.

Diana Julia Sweeney is killing it in law school at UIUC, y’all. This semester alone, she is off and running as a TA in Intro to Intellectual Property. And she just earned her way to being Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Law, Technology and Policy.

Wait, there’s more. Diana was a summer associate at Alston & Bird last summer. She is going back this summer and is splitting her summer with an associate position at an IP boutique firm in New York City. She also externed with a Chicago federal judge and earned a CALI (computer-assisted legal instruction) award for being the #1 student in Constitutional Law.

Good Lord, have mercy, she also passed the patent bar while at Georgia Tech and is ranked in the top 10% among her fellow law students at UIUC. (And, psst, if I may squeeze in one tiny more thing: she helps edit these posts of mine :)

Is it okay for parents to brag about their grown babies? You decide. And I will too. I love hearing about my friend's children and their joy. But, I also know (very well) that every day and every event is not a party. There are down days too.

The bummer times are also wonderful opportunities to give thanks for! Who doesn’t like a good cry? Be thankful. That’s what I do. Never poor me. I love a fall-to-your-kness expression of surrender as much as a jump-for-joy-look-at-me moment.

IMHO, falling to your knees is where the reward and strength originates.

For now, though, the photo of sweet baby boy and Diana’s rise to editor-in-chief, are both jump-for-joy moments.

Respectfully, ALL the glory goes back to God.

Thank you for reading!

Love, Shelley