Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, lovelies...

(you know what I mean)

If you only ever read one post I write on here, let it be this one.

Everyone needs to read this... not because it's the most profound blog post you'll ever read, and I'm the Shakespeare blogger of the 21st century or the next J.K Rowling.

(it isn't and i don't claim to be--my lack of talent pales in comparison to their overabundance of it.)

or because you're my Nation full of lovelies & I'm your fearless princeless princess who loves love too much for her own good.

(although you are all the loveliest humans i've been blessed to interact with & i love each & everyone of you.)

 nor is it because I care about "how many followers I can get" or "I want endless profile views".

(i don't...i'd be a liar if i said i didn't want people to take my words & sift through them with me for meaning & purpose meant to teach & inspire. but that's not the reason i write. it's not my Nation, it's yours too. my words are for you, lovely. after all, what good is anything in life if you don't share it with anyone, if you keep it locked away in the dark when you could be inspiring others who are inspirationless & about to give up, when you could potentially save a life with your story because the people who need to hear it are either headed or already on a path full of trials & heartache [almost identical to yours] that you've survived & could help them through it by being vulnerable & brave enough to share your experiences, when it's part of what you were born to do, when you turn your blood into ink, when we are saved only by love--love for each other & the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share by being a writer; being a friend, as Tennessee Williams observed 'We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love', when you're letting fear stop you even though you are a massive forest full of beautiful and vibrant stories and every single one of them deserves you more than those that abandoned you to hell, when words are magic, when they bring light to those stuck in that hellish dark place and you could offer a glimpse of heaven, when even though I feel like Peyton Sawyer--either saying too much or not enough and then they're gone--but I don't care what the haters, the naysayers, the worldly people out there think [i, for the record, don't hate anyone] if we all gave in to people like that, what a sad place this planet would be, i refuse to let one of the greatest regrets in my life be what others want me to be, rather than being myself and loving me for me, and when i know the reason and always have...)

i write because it's right.

Lovelies, don't squander your astonishing potential because your life and potential are priceless.

I am a small city girl with big dreams.

To those who tell me my dreams are too big, I counter that and confront them with the truth that theirs aren't big enough. 

We all know that famous, cutesy Audrey Hepburn quote: "Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'i'm possible'."

Those of you who know me know me, know the girl behind the blog of inspiration and endless love, know that one of my top 5 dreams is to write and publish my books, my novels, my story. I want to be a writer. The only bad writers are the ones that give up. Believe. I am here to tell you with an infinite amount of certainty that miracles, as rare as they are, are real. They happen to the ones who work hard, never give up, endure, love, change, grow, hurt, keep the faith, and don't let the bitter ones bring them down. I am a miracle. But that's another story for another day...

Even if my dream of becoming a best selling published author never see the light of day, if this blog, if these posts (my heart and soul in words) can save or inspire even one person it will have counted for something and worth everything.

As I said, if you only ever decide to make time to read one entry this is the important one.

...

STOP&READ. 🚦🚦🚦📓
If you read ANYTHING today, read this 👇🏼

To every girl and boy who gossip about me publicly, privately, on social media, in hushed corners, to those who judge me, to those who have stabbed me in the back, to the closeminded or misunderstood, to the just plain mean, to those who love to try, with every fiber of their pathetic being, to make me feel worthless, unworthy of love (or anything), and use my pain and my past to taunt me as a sick form of entertainment, pleasure, and power, to those who broke my heart. 

Guess what? 

You may have made it your mission to break me [and I'll admit you almost succeeded with the living hell you turned my life into] but you didn't. I'm not broken. All of you challenged me to become the girl I wanted to be my whole life. The best me. The badass princess that I am. I am stronger because of the pain, trials, sleepless nights, overwhelming anxiety and deep depression you put me through, and no matter what you have done to me, you have unknowingly done so much more for me. I will ALWAYS be unconditionally and unfailingly kind. Your bitterness and hatred can't change that. As the heroic, Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl said best: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 

Your hatred will never take away my love. Your cruelty won't make me pernicious. Your ice cold veins can't steal my warmth. I'm one of the kindest, most loving girls in existence. You may be heartless, but I have a heart bursting at the seams full of love. You can take everything I have, try to tear me down, but you can't take me or break me. I am not you. And I never will be. You can pin me down with a hundred arms, but I will resist. I won't stop believing. I will love into hate, into refusal, against hope and without fear.  Remember. You cannot take it. I am fearless. I forgive you AND love you. 

I honestly pray that you will someday find true happiness and discover that trying to steal other people's happiness will never make you any less miserable.

I would never treat or inflict hurt upon a person like that. Being the sweetheart that I am, I always try to see the good in people and ignore the bad. Thank you for teaching me I can love people that have harmed me and not let them back in my life.

Love > Hate.

 This world needs love and decency. There's enough heartache, warring with yourself, chaos, tragedy, trials, sadness, and misery in this world. You never know what someone is going through. Choose kindness. Have heart. What it all comes down to is this: all 7+ billion souls and human beings, despite our vast differences, want to be loved. Don't be a bully. Be better. Love is the answer. It always has been and it always will be. Fight for love, don't love to fight. 

<W/L3 Charley Brooke [aka Queen C, the next best thing to Queen Bey ;)]

Grapevine Fires (IDAHO is BURNING) & Rising from the Ashes

F I R E

These are pictures of the Charlotte Fire (as it is being called) or the Mink Creek/Gibson Jack Fire in Pocatello, Idaho aka where I live.

On Thursday, the day started out just fine and then went up in flames literally!

I was leaving work and stepped outside to see this fire! Right as I got outside the hospital doors I am facing these HUGE plumes and clouds of smoke darkening the sky. The flames raged wildly. I could see them from where I was standing. It looked like a volcano exploded or a war zone! I was in complete shock. Pocatello was burning. What was the most frightening thing was that my family live up Gibson Jack right where the fire was.

It was the worst fire I have ever witnessed in my life. I immediately pulled out my phone and called my mom. My stomach churned and twisted in knots with fear and anxiety when she answered, crying and freaking out. My heart sunk. My mother explained that the police were not letting people go up Mink Creek and Gibson Jack or anywhere near the fire. She said it was close to our house and that she and Bob (my stepdad) thought the house was going to burn down!
I raced to my grandma's house (where we had all decided to meet) listening to Death Cab for Cutie's "Grapevine Fires" and praying, praying, praying that our house would be saved, praying for a miracle in a situation completely out of control. My mom, Jordan (sister), Chrish (brother), my grandma, Madison (Jordan's friend), and my Aunt Michelle were all gathered together in the living room glued to the TV screen as the news reporters updated us on the fire.

I felt so bad for my mother who couldn't stop sobbing. She was worried because Bob went up to our house, climbed the hill, so that he could save our horses and let them free. He was taking a long time. We couldn't get a hold of him and it scared us because he has bad asthma. 

We were all incredibly relieved when Bob pulled up safe and sound in his truck. My mom ran to him and embraced him. He was upbeat, calm, and positive in the time of such a crises. I love that about him, always optimistic and hopeful. He let the horses go. They got away. He thought our home was going to turn to ashes and burn down. He took some stunning, terrifying videos of the raging inferno that was only yards away from our home.

Everyone who lived in or near the fire was evacuated. For a few hours, we sat, paced, talked, prayed, and waited ever so anxiously and nervously for the outcome. The question that hung heavier than the summer heat in the air was suffocating: will the house be burned to the ground, leaving my family homeless? Or would we be ever so blessed with a miracle, that our house would be spared?

All the while we were reminded of what truly matters, the most important thing is each other, the ones we love, family, people. Home isn't where your material possessions are stored. It isn't a place with polished hardwood floors or chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings or big theater rooms filled with every movie imaginable. Home is in the hearts of the ones we love. Home is family. Home is each other.

What a beautiful thing this life is, no matter the fire that burns all around us. If we just stick together, hold onto each other, and never take anyone or anything for granted, then I know we can make it through anything, through everything. Fire doesn't just destroy, it refines and purifies. It may hurt and burn at the onset, but the end result shines bright as the stars. Life is about thriving and triumphing after tragedy, together forever.

We kept getting mixed messages from friends of our family members that our house was burned one minute and the next that it was spared. It was nerve wracking. I felt so badly for everyone in this town. Prayers for rain were on my lips. I was just in total shock and awe that the unexpected always happens. We must always remember that people are what matters. Love matters. Everything else is replaceable, but family, love and friends are irreplaceable. Look at the people struggling with this exact same situation in Utah, Colorado, and other places in the United States. It only takes one spark to ignite a fire that can burn miles in minutes. This could happen to you. 

mY miracle

This is my family's house... a safe place in the midst of disaster and destruction. Some people may believe it is luck, but I know it as a miracle. Life is beautiful no matter the fire that burns around us. Home is in the hearts of the ones we love. Home is family. Our house was saved. I wish I could say the same for others. I heard nearly 60 homes were destroyed. I can't even begin to offer an explanation. I can say God is good. I know this was a miracle.

Just because you can't see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn't mean there can't be one. What matters now is coming together as a community and reaching out, helping, and sending prayers to those who were affected and victims of this fire and the fires all over the country. We all need one another and should never take this fact for granted, never forget it or take it lightly. Caring is sharing. Open your hearts lovelies and lets make this world a better place one person at a time.

I also send my thoughts and prayers with a heart overflowing with love and gratitude for all the brave firefighters who risk their lives and work relentlessly and fearlessly to put out these fires and triumph over disasters. 

Live by love

<3 Charley Brooke

This is what I believe to be true: You have to do everything you can, and if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining and the moon and all the stars that light up the night sky.

It's A Wonderful Life

"This is a sick world we're living in with sick people!"

-Sinbad, Jingle All The Way

"You'll shoot your eye out!"

-A Christmas Story

"I don't need a hundred gifts beneath the tree. Don't you know the best thing you could give to me. Nothing else will do. All I want is you this Christmas."

-NSYNC

"What do you want, Mary? Do you want the moon? If you want it, I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down for you. Hey! That's a pretty good idea! I'll give you the moon, Mary!"

-George Bailey

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."

-Roy L. Smith

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."

-Norman Vincent Peale

"Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas time."

-Laura Ingalls Wilder

"Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance--each beautiful, unique, and too soon gone."

-Deborah Whipp

"Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas everyday."

-Helen Steiner Rice

"Even before Christmas has said Hello, it's saying 'Buy Buy!'"

-Robert Paul

"There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus, he does not believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus."

-Bob Phillips

"The only real blind person at Christmas time is he who has not Christmas in his heart."

-Helen Keller

"To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year."

-E. B. White

"The way of fortune is like the milky-way in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together, so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues or rather faculties and customs that make men fortunate."

-Sir Francis Bacon

"He who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man, but one thing the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

-Viktor E. Frank

"Man on Porch: "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking to her to death?"

George Bailey: "You want me to kiss her, huh?"

Man on Porch: "Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people."

-It's A Wonderful Life

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought or something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a bit more."

-Dr. Seuss

"When you're a kid, it's simple. Christmas is magic. It's a time of miracles, when reindeer can fly, and Frosty never melts. Then you get older. Somehow, things change. The magic begins to fade. Until something happens that reminds you, at Christmas time, miracles still can be found. Sometimes in the most unexpected places." 

-The Wonder Years

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other."

-Burton Hills

"Best of all, Christmas means a spirit of love, a time when the love of God and the love of our fellow men should prevail over all hatred and bitterness, a time when our thoughts and deeds and the spirit of our lives manifest the presence of God."

-George F. McDougall

"The spirit of giving gifts has been present in the mind of each Christian as he or she commemorates the Christmas season. Our Heavenly Father gave to us His Son, Jesus Christ. That precious Son gave to us His life, the Atonement, and victory over the grave."

-President Thomas S. Monson 

"If I had a snowflake for every time I thought of you, we'd have a really white Christmas."

-Charlie Brown

"So remember, whilst Christmas brings the only Christmas Day, in the year let there be Christmas in the things you do and say. Wouldn't life be worth the living. Wouldn't dreams be coming true if we kept the Christmas spirit all the whole year through?"

"Christmas is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas."

-Dale Evans

"Christmas is doing a little extra for someone."

-Charles Schultz 

"This the message of Christmas: we are never alone."

-Taylor Caldwell

"I love everything about the Christmas season , but mostly the way that people find ways to be with the ones they love... And I love sweaters."

-Taylor Swift

"Love, the wise men followed the star. The I followed my heart. And it led me to a miracle."

-Justin Bieber