THANKFUL THURSDAY

I'm thankful for music to fit every mood. What's one thing that you're thankful for?

SISTER TIME

Beep and I may be on the same continent these days, and only four hours apart, but we haven't seen each other since she came up in October because life gets busy. We just remedied that with 48 hours together. I took a quick picture with the other Ws on Sunday morning, then they headed north to church and I went south to my sister's.

My trip was primarily for some sister time, but I'd mentioned on Facebook earlier in the week that I'd be available for lunch if any friends could get together. We ended up with five members of my extended family and three friends around the table at Common Block Brewing Company for lots of catching up on life and eating a tasty meal. I'd unexpectedly run into Katy back in August for the first time in 13 years, but hadn't seen Gina since crossing paths at a Toby Mac concert three years ago or Amy since our last marshmallow gun war seven summers ago. As for family, I hadn't seen Ashley since our pre-retirement trip a year ago or Daisy, Ally, and Neo since July.

Later that evening we had some family time at Beep's. Dad, Debra, and Ashley all came over for dinner, so we had another round of conversation, laughter, and good food. I hadn't seen Dad since July or Debra since the pre-retirement trip last spring, so we were due for a visit!

Monday found us in Ashland to check out the Schneider Museum of Art. First, though, we grabbed a delicious bite to eat at Cafe 116. Since we were right across the alley from Paddington Station, one of our favorite stores and a place I've shopped at for almost 25 years, we popped in to check things out. Love that place!

I didn't end up buying anything, but left with this sweet gift, which is now on display in my room.

Play time was over and we shifted gears to a project Beep had asked me to help before I came down.
We spent the afternoon organizing her studio and coming up with a new way to keep track of supplies, which I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed. Then I did some dinner prep while she worked on cutting a mat for a painting she'd given me as a birthday gift last June. I loved watching her work in her little creative space.

And I really love that this painting is now in a frame in my living room!

We spent a chunk of time on Tuesday morning talking about life, then went out for brunch at Punky's Diner & Pies before I headed back to my family. The snow storm that had shut down the freeway on Monday was cleaned up enough by Tuesday afternoon that my drive home was uneventful and I walked in my front door to this greeting from Naomi and Tyler.

I'm really thankful for this season of being able to spend time with my sister and that the logistics worked out for this little break from real life.

Photo credit: The extended family picture is from Beep.

HAPPY MUG & HAPPY MAIL

Thursday morning I was able to use my new mug of cheerfulness that I'd made at Happy Art Ceramic Studio for the first time. I absolutely love it! The bright colors on the outside and confetti flecks all over the inside and handle are so fun. Bonus points for the fact that using it will always remind me of a great evening with friends. As a sidenote, this week Happy Art started offering occasional promotions via text. If you want to get on their list, just let them know via Facebook message (that's what I did), phone call, or e-mail.

Then our mail was delivered and my first BMoff art purchase was in the mailbox. I'd been meaning to order some hand printed cards for quite a while, but kept forgetting. Then she offered a 20% discount on all orders of $20 or more until the end of February and I jumped on it. At some point I'm going to frame and hang her various Oregon/PNW cards, but for now I'm just buying cards to send as happy mail. I got one set of the Oregon series and another of the "Hi!" cards from her hand series. They're awesome! She even included one of her stickers, just for kicks.

I'd say it was a pretty good morning!

THANKFUL THURSDAY

I'm thankful for people with tact. What's one thing that you're thankful for?

REUNITED

Elvira was one of my closest friends in high school, but we lost contact and haven't seen each other since we were 19. She found me on Facebook last week and we discovered we live near each other. That means I got to spend two hours with her yesterday! It was so good to catch up and we definitely won't let another 23 years pass before we hang out again.

PAINTING, EATING, & CHATTING

Shannon coordinated a fun evening out with a handful of her friends on Friday. She, Alicia, Kimberly, another Bethany, and I are all acquainted with each other because we attend the same church and our kids are friends, but Shannon's the only one who'd actually met each person before. 

We kicked things off at Happy Art Ceramic Studio. I decided to paint a coffee mug and even busted out of my blue and green color preferences to do something with a variety of bright colors.

Shannon took a picture of me (and Alicia) to show my sister, the artist, as proof that my non-artistic self did something outside of my natural skill set.

We closed down the studio, but no one was in a hurry to go home. So we ended up spending a couple hours together at Red Robin.

Alicia and I had carpooled from the ceramic studio to the restaurant, so we drove back to the studio to get her vehicle when we finished our time at Red Robin. We ended up chatting in the parking lot for another hour before heading home.

Two nights in a row of being out past midnight, one with Tim and the other with friends, was exhausting for my middle-aged self, but so much fun. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening with these gals! It was nice to spend time with the ones I already knew, get to know the others a little bit, chat about practical stuff, hear neat stories about each other's lives, and just take a break from real life for a while.

DOUBLE DATE DAY

We had a schedule change that allowed Tim and I to head out for a short date on Thursday morning. We'd already used up our "couple time" budget for the month, but I still had two Starbucks gift cards I'd earned at the start of my Pampered Chef business. So that's where we headed! It was nice to spend an hour just chatting about life and enjoying hot drinks.

Later on in the day I mentioned some movie passes we'd been given more than a year ago and suggested we go watch a late show. Midnight. That's what time we left the theater. Wowzers! Let's just say I don't bounce back from late nights out like I used to and had to take a nap on Friday. It was fun, though, and I'm glad we went.

Thinking about our double date day this morning brings a few things to mind.

First, I'm not a very spontaneous person. I really like making plans and sticking to them. There are obvious benefits to my personality, but I'm trying to choose present over perfect more often and that requires some spontaneity. It's not easy for me and there's usually fallout (like exhaustion the next day), but more often than not the pros outweigh the cons.

Second, I'm thankful we can regularly set aside money for time together now and have kids that are old enough to be left home alone. People always say dates are something you should budget for, but evidently those people have never had an income without any wiggle room beyond essential bills. We've been married nearly twenty years and this is the first time we've consistently budgeted for dates. If you can't afford to pay for dates with your spouse, you can still find ways to enjoy time alone for free or just choose to be content in a dateless season of life. But don't ever feel like you're failing at finances or marriage simply because you can't budget any of your paycheck for dates. Seriously. Don't.

On the flip side, if you have money for more than the essentials in your life, consider blessing other couples with gift cards that will allow them to have some free dates. Whether you have cash to spare or not, you can also offer to watch a couples' kids for free. Babysitting rates are absolutely insane and keep so many couples from enjoying some time alone. Trading babysitting and date nights with another family is a solution we've used at times, but sometimes it's nice to enjoy a date without having to put an extra commitment on your calendar in order to repay the babysitting swap.

Finally, marriage has ups and downs. I know that's not exactly a newsflash, but I also know it can be discouraging to see the fun other couples are having together (or appear to be having) when your own marriage is in a rough season. Tim and I really enjoy each other right now and getting two dates in one day was so awesome, but there have been seasons when going on a date wouldn't have made our list of top ten things to do on any given day. Some of those seasons were brief, others were long. My challenge to you is to enjoy the comfortable seasons, not give up through the hard ones, and never compare what you know to be true in your marriage with the limited view you have of another couple's marriage.

And now back to the original purpose of this post. Two free dates in one day? Jackpot!!

VALENTINE'S DAY - 2019

We don't usually make a big deal about Valentine's Day around here, but you know how much we love cookies. If a particular holiday gives us an opportunity to eat one of our favorite treats, we're happy. That means we invited friends over to decorate a bunch of heart-shaped sugar cookies last night. Here we are with some of our creations.

Silas had an ongoing commitment and wasn't able to join us, but everyone else had a good time. You really can't go wrong when cookies are involved!

We also started our day with Naomi adding Valentine's Day greetings to the initials we always put on our drinking jars, handmade cards and a gift from Naomi, goodies from a friend, and cards for the kids from part of our extended family.

THANKFUL THURSDAY

I'm thankful for the woman who, as she got out of her car at church last night, thanked Devon for a job well done after he directed her to a parking spot and handed him a bag of candy. I have no idea who it was, but she made his day. What's one thing you're thankful for?

DEVON'S BUDDIES

In a somewhat spontaneous turn of events, we brought Kyle and Luke home with us after church on Sunday to hang out with Devon. They spent the day playing Monopoly: Cheater's Edition, riding bikes across town in arctic temps for pan dulce at Miranda's Bakery, watching a movie, making audio recordings of various things, and just hanging out. We asked them for one picture to prove they were all together and this is what we got.  

We may not have a single picture of all of them facing the camera with genuine smiles, but we did get an accurate portrayal of the silliness and laughter that the day was filled with. So we'll call it a success.

This picture is blurry and not awesome in any way, except that it makes me smile remembering all six of these kids cracking up as they made all sorts of recordings together.

Devon had a blast, so I'm really glad these buddies of his were able to spend the day in our home.

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THANKFUL THURSDAY

I'm thankful that I slept in late. What's one thing that you're thankful for?

SNOWY MORNING

A little bit of snow fell on Monday night, so I let Naomi and Tyler ditch school on Tuesday morning in favor of playing in it. 

Two weeks of sick kids means we've fallen behind in school, so losing a morning of work time wasn't my ideal choice. If we lose our morning, we lose our day. However, I'm trying to choose present over perfect more often and snow is an infrequent occurrence around here. These two had a blast outside and I know I chose wisely this time around.

LUNCH WITH FRIENDS

Alex called a few weeks ago to give me a heads up he and Melissa would be in town this weekend and wanted to get together. The original plan was to have them over for dinner tonight. Then we switched it to Saturday night. Then another little W came down with a fever over 103 degrees on Friday night and I had to cancel.

We haven't seen them in over a year and I was super bummed that we were going to miss them on this trip. Then last night I had an idea, bounced it off Tim, and shot Alex a text. My idea worked on their end, which means this afternoon we met up for an "adults only" lunch at Firehouse Subs. The little Ws were bummed they didn't get to see him, but they'll survive.

It was great to spend some time chatting, laughing (there's always laughter involved with Alex in the mix, which is one reason I'm glad we've been friends for decades), and eating together. They're fun to hang out with, my "long-time friends are awesome" tank got filled, and I'm married to a guy who understands there are certain people that I make it a priority to see when I have the chance, so I'm a happy girl tonight.

SPONTANEOUS DATE NIGHT

If a man comes home from work on Wednesday to discover his wife sobbing about everything and nothing as she stands over the stove preparing dinner, that wife may wake up from a Friday afternoon nap to discover a text from her husband saying they're going out to dinner.

The two of them will later abandon their children for a few hours as the husband acknowledges all the plates his wife has been spinning the last two weeks and says he wants her to have the night off. Then they'll eat a ridiculous amount of delicious food during their first visit to La Sen Vietnamese Grill.

Abandoning the responsible eating she's been intentional about for the last couple weeks, the wife will accept the husband's offer to top the gluttonous evening off by sharing some tasty ice cream from Cold Stone, paid for in part by the balance on a gift card they'd been given ages ago. Because if there's a gift card in the mix and the ice cream is two doors down, there's really no other choice but to indulge.

Three hours, lots of conversation, and a fair amount of laughter after pulling out of their driveway, they'll return home. The wife, who is tired and admits to being temporarily annoyed about being told she was going out for the evening because she just wanted to curl up in bed with a good book, will be really thankful she followed her husband's lead.

She'll put on sweats, because now her jeans are fitting more snuggly than when she left the house earlier in the evening, and make herself a cup of tea. And all will be well in her world.

Good man. Good food. Good night.