a skip in my step

Moments before I headed out the door this morning, I announced to Eric It's my birthday! He looked at me, with a lot of thinking in his face... until I excitedly added ...at work! He said he just thought I had gone crazy...
So, no.
Today is not my birthday... but it is coming... soon!
And the gals at work know... you gotta spread out the celebrating.
So off I went to work... with a skip in my step. Because birthdays are good. Yes... they are. Birthdays celebrate the uniqueness of an ordinary day... and as Elizabeth would say, they mark another trip around the sun (don't you just love that?!) And then there is the cake!
Yes.
Birthdays are good.

lasagna & snowflakes

Sunday afternoon became a mess of panic-stricken hurrying to accomplish... something. In my determination, when the computer took time to catch up with itself, I took to cleaning and straightening... not wanting to waste a minute. When the ringing phone interrupted my go-go-going, I paused but then gave in to answering it... since through the magic of caller id I knew who was waiting on the other end. I certainly don't claim to be focused, and I eagerly welcomed distraction from a friend. And it was a call worth answering. An invitation? For dinner? Tonight? I could have said No, I really have so much I need to get done tonight... but I never did fit in a trip to the grocery store and my family was likely to have stale crackers and lunch meat for dinner... so I accepted. It turned out to be more than an invitation... it was also motivation to keep on working... but maybe more than that. Her phone call felt like a life-line in my afternoon... once the offer was made I knew that it was exactly what I needed. An invitation to relax... with friends who don't mind if you show up for dinner in your pajamas. And I suppose there is not much that a glass of wine and a dinner I did not have to cook won't fix. Add in a lesson on making paper snowflakes and a little singing & dancing (complete with jazz hands) in the kitchen and the crushing stress of my procrastination had all but vanished.
Friendship. Laughter. Lasagna. Corny music and jazz hands.
I will have to remember this recipe the next time I pile too much up on life's plate...

Unwrap a Tuesday with Emily at Chatting at the Sky...

decorations start with d

Last night I turned all the Christmas lights on... and all of the other lights off. And I just sat... while the room glowed with twinkling colors. It gave me that first-one-awake-on-Christmas morning feeling... when you peer around the corner and see that Santa has come. I love to have the house decorated for Christmas... and there have been years that I thought about not taking them down. Ahem. That is where gotta-be-down-on-Super-Bowl-Sunday deadline came in. Today... I am delighting in the decorations and I wanted to share...
The tree... laden with every memory ever made. From 1969 to 2009...
The little book nook...
Radio City newly inspired by Elf... and Jennifer Juniper.
And my son's favorite nativity. We love how it goes from this....
...to this.

Merry Christmas!

It is A to Z Monday at Jen's Unglazed... and I'm also linking up here...

standing in

Sometimes I feel like an impostor in my own life. Me... but not. The outside might appear to be the girl bearing my heart... but on the inside, the heart of me feels covered in sticky goo. A pretender in my very own self. The truth of it is... this Advent season is not going the way I planned. The way I wanted it to. And certainly not the way that Jesus deserves it to go. Here I am... the whole mess of me, sitting in the cobwebs left over from Halloween (that truthfully, I have been saving since... March?) I stood in church this morning just begging for that beautiful pink candle to light up my heart and overcome me... but I think the molasses from last week's gingerbread has pretty well coated me over. Funny... a Mom knows best, right? Just the other night my Mom told me she was worried that I was doing to much. No! I am doing fine! Only the things I want to do and I am ahead of the game! Shopping all but done! cards done!
Funny...
how a Mom knows.
Last year it all hit me on the second Sunday of Advent. So I made it to week three this year... but for the life of me, I can't figure out if that is good or bad. I suppose it just is. Regardless, here I am, the great celebrator of Advent... and I'm not.
Remember that PowerPoint I am doing for our Sunday School program? Somehow it just dawned on me that it is "due" Saturday. Yes. This Saturday. So guess what I was doing at 5:09 this morning? Yep. Learning how to make a PowerPoint. And Wednesday night? We have the Band Boosters coming for a budget meeting... and dinner. At least it is motivation to vacuum up the pine needles and Easter Dust bunnies. This weekend still has some life to it, and I am already wondering how I will even make it to the next.
Smiling bright. Every hair in place. Saying all the right things. An impostor. Like a shepherd standing in for a lost wise man... hoping that nobody will notice that he is without a crown. Hoping that the love in his overloaded heart will start to light up and blind them towards his flaws. Hoping... anyway.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
Confession is good for the soul. Spitting it all out somehow makes way for the good stuff... like Jesus coming in with a warm soapy cloth and washing my heart of its stickiness... and giving me the patience to figure out Power Point. It leaves my heart a little lighter... and perhaps I will actually be able to enjoy those photos, instead of being overwhelmed by them. Because in them... I can see the story. And where I want to be. Curled up next to the sheep... gazing at the Shepherd.