The best kind of Saturday.

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You know those days when you seem to say from start to finish, "Wow, I get to live this life?!"  When you wish you could immediately start it all over again and do the exact same thing?  That was today.  Nothing earth-shattering, just a handful of ordinary glimmering moments full of life and joy and abundance.

First, my brother, nieces and nephew came over for breakfast.  Chocolate chip pancakes for all, scrambled eggs with cheese, a fruit bowl of juicy blueberries, peaches and apples.  Frothy chocolate milk and cups of applesauce.  The house was full of yelling and rambunciousness and laughter.  And lots of jumping on the bed, "cooking" with the play kitchen, acting like monsters, reading books from my childhood, and pretending we were Charlie's Angels.  A memorable moment was when 10-year-old niece declared she was going to serve me eggs with "sea salt and sea pepper."  Quote of the morning from my nephew, "I'm not a monster!  I'm ZACHARY!" 

Then, early afternoon, it was off to Urban Acres to visit Steven at work.  We made the "mistake" of letting  almost-two-year-old Luci Belle get into the watermelon bin once, and then she wouldn't stop asking, "Squash?  Up, Mama?"  Well, they're not squash; they're melon.  But okay.

With all the daily challenges, it sure is fun owning a store, because I get to witness scenes like this just about every weekend.  Melt me.

Back home, it was time for a snack, and I couldn't wait to tear into the newest Hail Merry tart flavor - coconut vanilla creme!  Yes please.  For those of you in other states, Hail Merry products should be at your local Whole Foods! 

After some time for relaxation and naps, we saw the storms 'a rollin' in.  One moment it was sunny and scorching; the next it was dark and windy and blustery, all cozy outside and a cool(er) 85 degrees.  Thank  God.  Our parched city really needed some relief.  We decided to take a walk to revel in it. 

As we set out, it was glaringly obvious that our 2-year-old doesn't see rain often.  As soon as a few droplets started to sprinkle her toes, she asked for a towel. Seriously.

But we kept strolling and reveling in the quietness and coolness.  On the way home, Steven decided to take us past a grove of massive fig trees growing wildly in the Winnetka Heights neighborhood.  Popping them in our mouths like candy straight off the tree, we filled our tummies.  Meanwhile, cars whizzed by, oblivious that a delicious free food source was growing right there on the side of the road.

This the handful that made it home...

By the end of the walk, my hair looked like Monica's in the Friends episode where they're in Barbados, but I didn't even care.

We heated up some chicken stock and added shredded chicken, yellow squash, red potatoes, spinach, and Applegate Farms chicken and apple sausage.  As the perfect soothing soup bubbled on the stove on a rainy evening, I thought, these are the days that make it all worth it.

And I just had to share with you.

A perfect picnic.

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It was late on a warm, sunny Sunday morning.  We were two married couples, two sets of parents on the loose, four foodies, four best friends ready to reconnect, reveling in the freedom of having our moms to babysit our children for a few hours. 

And we were likely the only people to bring no less than the following items on a casual Sunday picnic: a giant coffee air pot, two glass champagne flutes, four ceramic mugs and four plates, and a full-size wooden pepper grinder.  But that's just what we do with these friends, Tommy and Linda.  We share our lives; we share our faith; we share our food.

So, we unfurled our plaid quilted blankets under an elegant oak tree and began the first course - coffee for the boys, Prosecco for the ladies, blueberry cake donuts all around.

Then, we carefully constructed sandwiches of homemade almond butter and peach and plum jam on squishy bread.  We opened a dish of still-steaming egg casserole, ate fistfuls of tart Texas blackberries.

We played catch, one of my favorite activities in the entire world, which I haven't had the chance to do since our daughter was born. 

It's so special to have friends who are like family - friends with whom you share your food, your faith, your lives.

We ate, we drank.  We exhaled.  We lay on our backs in the grass and listened to the crickets singing in the oak trees. We were refreshed.

And it was perfect.

View from the picnic blanket

And I know He watches me.

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A few weeks ago on a Saturday morning,  I sent my friend Linda this text:

SOS!  Need prayers for mom sanity.  Phone face just shattered.  Belle teething and clingy.  Feel like I am abt to lose it. 

And if I see one more dang fly...

Except I didn't say "dang" but something far worse.  Ugh.  Not one of my proudest moments.

Of course, it wasn't really about a broken iPhone or houseflies, but they were the straws that broke this weary camel's back.  It had been a very rough, stressful week, and I had reached the breaking point.

There is so much more I wanted to say to Linda at that moment but I could barely type on my shattered phone face, and I was pretty sure shards of glass were already embedded in my thumbs.

It didn't matter.  She immediately offered,

Oh no!  Wanna drop Belle off for an hour or so breather?

Before responding, I hesitated.  I felt like I was burdening her.  After all, she just had her first baby two months ago, and she was offering to bail me out?  I could handle this on my own...I just needed to vent, right?

But then I remembered all the harsh words I'd already spoken that morning to myself, to the poor dogs, and to my daughter, and I knew.  I needed to step away.

So I cashed in my "SOS."

I drove two blocks down to Linda's house and waited for her to come to the door.  With my head in my hands, I sat in a rocking chair on her front porch while my daughter rapped on the door excitedly.  After depositing her into my friend's trusted hands, I quietly drove the two blocks back home.

~ ~ ~

Back at the house, I made a smoothie and parked myself on the couch with my journal and Bible - my lifelines.  The first words I wrote were, "Lord, I need help..."

One of my favorite authors of all time, Anne Lamott, says that the two best prayers she knows are, "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."  On this day, those are the best prayers I could utter.

So I wrote, pouring myself out to God.  I made bullet points of all the burdens that were nagging at my spirit like a dirty housefly swirling around my counter top.  And I felt better, like I had purged a lot of ugliness from my heart.

After journaling, I took a hot bath.  There in the steaming hot tub filled with bubbles and tangerine essential oil, He met me.  And He gave me a song.

Out of the blue, I began singing aloud,

I sing because I'm happy

I sing because I'm free

His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches me

Really?  I haven't heard or sung "His Eye is On The Sparrow" in years.  But the words resonated, and I sat there for a few moments with the melody pulsing through my warm skin, just reveling in the beauty of it.

And then, He gave me a memory.

About three years ago, our dear friends Chris and Julie Bennett, who pastor an Antioch Church in Norman, OK, prayed over us.  Julie's hands on my shoulders were like the hands of Christ Himself that day, the touch resonating through my entire body and every nerve ending.  In the middle of the prayer, I know I saw Jesus face-to-face.  Suddenly I was looking into the kindest, clearest eyes I'd ever seen in my thirty-one years, His face just inches from mine.  His eyes were filled with perfect peace.  I knew He could see me and all my burdens.  I knew that everything was going to be okay.

~ ~ ~

Back in the bathtub, a moment of realization:

The song - "I know He watches me..."

The memory - His eyes, seeing me.

Yes!  That's what He wanted me to know today.  He watches me.  He sees me.  He loves me.  He is Peace.

When I know He sees it all and is watching over me, how can I be afraid?  At the root of it, anger, frustration, entitlement - it's all fear.  Fear that things are not going to be okay.   Fear that maybe I really am the one who has to hold it all together.  Of course, those are lies.  Because, "There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear." (1 John 4:18) 

~ ~ ~

I'm thankful for friends who come to the rescue.

I'm thankful for this one hour to quiet my spirit before Him, undistracted.

I'm thankful that He cares when I'm struggling and when I'm fearing, even when my trivial problems of a broken iPhone and some flies in my house and a whiny {healthy, perfectly growing} toddler are the hardest parts of my day. 

I'm thankful He knows how much I adore being a wife and mother.  And that's why these ugly feelings are even more difficult to swallow.  

I am so very thankful to have Christ, whose love for me and my imperfect life is perfect and fearless and secure.

This kind of difficult day has happened since and will happen more.  And that will be another opportunity to re-shift my heart, to move toward gratefulness once again.

So here's a reminder {to myself more than anyone}...

When you feel like you're losing your mind,

Ask for help,

take time for yourself,

embrace Truth,

remember the sparrows,

and put things in perspective.

{And get a fly swatter.}

If He knows when the tiniest bird falls to the ground, He can surely take care of you.  And me.

Simple living: thankfulness frame.

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I've seen the blog posts circulating about how excessive Pinterest-surfing is causing moms to ignore their kids because they're too busy pinning at every spare minute.  And I get that, as I have to be careful not to retreat to my computer instead of engaging with the people in my home.  Anything can be taken overboard and abused.  Personally though, I have to say that many of the simple, creative ideas I've seen on Pinterest have actually helped me engage with the people in my life more.   This project is one of them.

First, I saw this idea on Pinterest, and then a sweet friend gave me a cute gift wrapped in burlap, and I thought I could repurpose it for this simple project. Who doesn't love burlap?  I wrote on a 5x7 frame with a white paint pen, framed the burlap, and in literally less than 5 minutes and $0 spent, I had this:

The idea for this frame, which is now perched on the dresser in our bedroom, is that my husband and I would use it to write notes back and forth to each other in the form of thankfulness. The notes are written with a dry-erase marker and easily wiped off.

Practicing thankfulness is one of the most important things we can do every single day.  For me, taking a moment to write or speak thankfulness is the difference between spiraling into a sea of chaos, resentfulness, and entitlement vs. peacefully surrendering my life and seeing the multitude of gifts I already have.  Yet, it's something I easily forget.  Every single day.

Writing on the thankfulness frame encourages me to search for something to be thankful for, even when I don't feel it at that moment.  And a bonus is receiving encouragement by what my husband writes.  The other morning after he had left for work, I found this:

Sigh.  I do love that man.  He knows me, he sees what's important in life, and he'll take two seconds to write on a picture frame to put a smile on his wife's face.  I've always wanted our home to be a place of beauty and peace, and it made me happy - and thankful - to know he sees it that way too.

So, I encourage you to make a thankfulness frame - for yourself or even as a simple gift for a friend.  We can all use a little more thankfulness in our lives, can't we?