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!!