Life is not always perfect, but often it is good

Like weekends full of:
Sleepy early Friday nights with the boyfriend falling asleep on his shoulder.
Early Saturday mornings cheering on my Younglife girls at a swim meet and hanging with their super wonderful parents.
Saturday afternoons sitting with high school friends and cheering on the high school Poms team in their county competition.
Randomly stopping by another high school friend's house and talking about life, her baby, and hanging out with her family and sharing love with them the way Christ does with us.
Dinner with old friends - celebrating growing up, new engagements, home ownerships, and realizing that some things never change.
Sunday mornings at church sitting next to a couple of great friends, and one particularly wonderful man.
Afternoon runs with yet another Younglife friend - our junior leader, and then having her crash lunchtime with said wonderful man and I.
Superbowl parties with good food, decent commercials, plenty of half-time entertainment, and casual laid back conversation.

What else is good is:
Wednesday afternoons working from home (trying to beat the snow that DIDN'T stick...)
A run to David's bridal to see what I will look like when I am standing in front of the church watching my best friend commit her life to her best friend.
A little innocent gossip between roommates that is not altogether juicy to either one of us, but definitely draws some smirks from the cashier.
A night of invention in the kitchen with brightly colored, delicious tasting veggies.
Chocolate covered strawberries.
Spending time with a friend who will not always be so close (physically).
Finding out that kitchen inventions can be delicious and healthy!  (and pretty)
A glass of red wine.
Watching Modern Family with ALL roommates present.
Leftovers of said healthy meal.
Random music videos and dance parties for Shake It Country Girl, and MMMBop (we are all country girls who grew up in the 90s.  Don't judge.)

Pictures and videos below to show you some of my Wednesday night.

Roomie dinner night!

Just start with a little brown rice...

Add the most colorful veggies in the market...

Ensure proper garnish (cheese) and tools for proper cooking (wine)

Melt Chocolate Chips onto some fruit for the best dessert imaginable...

MMBop & Shake It Country Girl


Tonight was a REALLY good night.  This past weekend was a REALLY good weekend.  Yes, life is sometimes not easy or downright hard.  But I have a lot of love in my life, and that is a very very good thing...

Life is so good, and I do believe it's gettin better <3

it's only been 2 months since Thanksgiving, so...

Why not take this completely time-appropriate opprotunity to update you all on my Thanksgiving?  (Don't laugh, or judge me... ok fine, you can and should.)

So I have a crazy family.  We see each other three times a year on my dad's side, and two times a year on my mom's side, so Thanksgiving most years can not come fast enough.  I love getting together with my family, we usually go to my Grandma's house for noon social/pre-dinner snacktime (aka- MINI LUNCH).  And then we head to Steve's for dinner and football.  I can't remember a year where we didn't do that.

This year mah seester came down in October, met the boyfriend, and guilted me into inviting him up for Thanksgiving.  I know - I wrote guilted me into it.  I know I should have been the one to think about inviting him up, but I am a bit horrified of committment, and my family can be... well... a bit intimidating.  Trust me, I love them to death and wouldn't change them for the world, but I have never brought a guy home for Thanksgiving to meet the family.  As a matter of fact last year, I got the comment that every single girl hopes she never hears.  Steve pulled me aside and said "Are you ever going to bring a man around for Thanksgiving?  You know... you can bring a girl too, if you think you might be a lesbian."  AWESOME.  Thanks Steve.  My response was some sort of mumbled "no, I'm not a lesbian, I'll bring a guy home sometime.  I hope..."  But he was kidding.  That's Steve.  He's a kidder.  But that just goes to show that after 25 years my family was starting to wonder where the men in my life were hiding.

I remember talking to my sister about him.  I remember saying "FINE, I will invite him."  (I mean, I was so crazy about the boy, it was just terrifying.)  I was talking to him on the phone about a month before Thanksgiving and said "so... if you want to come up for Thanksgiving or something, that would be ok."  Pause - let me just say, bless his heart for dealing with me and my quizzical words.  Resume - He asked if I wanted him there, and I told him yes.  It was set, and I had about a month to prepare for this nerve-wracking experience.  Fortunately, we have a mutual good friend who gave boyfriend a heads-up on my crazy family, telling him stories from when she came to the beach over the summer at met them at their finest. 

Fast forward to driving up to Thanksgiving, and I actually felt good about bringing him around.  By this point in time he had already met my dad and my sister, and I was already committed to it.  I hardly remember most of the weekend, simply because it was so long ago.  I remember that Thanksgiving day my sister had the bright idea to take a family picture.  I was excited because we had boyfriend there to take the photo.  But NO.  Boyfriend got put in the family photo.  Well... this could be awkward if he didn't survive the weekend.  "Look everyone, this is how nice and happy he looked just before horrendous torture and subsequent death from girlfriend's family."  (Fortunately, my man is a trooper!)  Needless to say, we just kinda looked at each other as if to say - Really family picture?  I'm not sure we are ready for that...

But we survived awkard family photo moment, all jumped in one car (yep.  We really stress family closeness with new people) and headed out to Gma's house.  The prying, the questions, the grilling - all that boyfriend had been prepared for, was replaced by good food and easy conversation.  I was blown away, but trusted that when we got to Steve's that he would really go through the ringer.

After our pre-snack, we went to Steve's for dinner, where he was surely going to go through the ringer.  I think his heart almost stopped when cousins #1,2,3&4 started talking about their night out.  Fortunately, Patty slammed the conversation shut and we started eating.  Boyfriend was not grilled or tortured at all.  We enjoyed a really nice dinner with some conversation and football, and then we called it a night.  I could not believe what just happened, and knew that it was a miracle.

We piled back in the one car, and headed home until my dad provided torture of his own (if you were in the car, you know - if not - no need to rehash traumatic memories).  And hey, boyfriend didn't run out of anyone's house screaming and dumping me in the process, he survived about 2.5 collective hours in the car with my mom, dad, brother, sister, and I (which can be taxing for even me sometimes), and hey - Steve doesn't think I'm a lesbian.  I would say it was a nice and successful Thanksgiving dinner overall.

The next morning, we got up, headed to Philly for some brunch with old high school friends of mine, and drove back to Maryland for some Christmas tree shopping and recoverly.  Crisis averted, now if I can just figure out a way to sidestep the inevitable torture he will endure at summer beach week, I will be good to go.  Time to get my master plan wheels turning...

More updates to come!!